In 2022, the global luxury group KERING, in collaboration with its facility management provider VINCI, launched a project to upgrade its headquarters with the aim of assessing the environmental impact of the buildings on the premises, in accordance with the BREEAM certification standard.
The requirements for this certification included, among other things, energy management, building emissions, waste management, and water management.
For this project, the teams at ESME SOLUTIONS implemented an automated remote meter reading solution for cold water meters that incorporates several Pulse LoRa ENLESS WIRELESS remote meter reading sensors.
Background:
The site in question is the headquarters of KERING, a global luxury group that includes iconic fashion, leather goods, and jewelry brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga. The site is a listed historic building with complex architecture. The building walls are thick, presenting significant challenges for cable routing.
In the past, water meters were read manually once a month, which required the presence of technicians. VINCI, the site operator, in collaboration with KERING teams, sought to automate these visits.
Objectives:
The objectives of implementing the system were threefold:
- Detection of water leaks in the water supply system
- Detailed analysis of water consumption
- Achievement of BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) certification, a recognized international standard for the assessment of buildings.
Deployments:
Enless Wireless LoRa pulse sensors were deployed on the site’s 13 water meters and configured to transmit data every 15 minutes. In addition to the 13 Enless Pulse LoRa sensors, one Enless LoRa receiver and five Enless LoRa repeaters were positioned at strategic locations on the site to enable the reception of data from the pulse sensors throughout the buildings.
Note: A LoRa Easy receiver can receive data from up to 50 Enless Wireless sensors.
The Enless receiver was configured quickly and easily via the receiver’s built-in server. The additional repeaters required no installation and could be “chained” together.
Enless Wireless remote-reading sensors transmit the number of pulses recorded to the Enless LoRa receiver every 15 minutes, which is then used to calculate water meter consumption.
The technical team responsible for implementation at Esmé Solutions, Eiffage Energie Système, states:
“Thanks to the Enless LoRa receivers used in a private network with their signal repeater function, the deployment process was greatly simplified, particularly in hard-to-reach areas”.
Local data processing via edge computing then makes the data available to the Building Management System BMS Energy Box UC-4 controller). Thanks to its data processing capabilities, the EB can provide water consumption histograms and tables at any time and as needed. A further level of visualization, analysis, and utilization of the collected data is then made possible via the Powerbat Energy Management IoT platform.
What are the results?
Since the system was implemented, incidents have been detected in real time thanks to the automation of water consumption data collection and transmission. In particular, abnormal consumption levels were identified across several cubic meters. The operator, alerted within minutes, was able to respond immediately, locate the leak, and repair it.
And what about the future?
The Kering representative, in collaboration with the Esmé Solutions teams, is now exploring ways to expand the system’s applications as part of an ongoing effort to improve comfort and better manage energy consumption.
“We have an excellent working relationship with the Enless team, particularly their support and sales teams. Our controller now natively integrates their range of LoRa sensors.”
Esmé Solutions team in charge of the project
About Esmé Solutions
Esmé Solutions, a long-standing player in the connected buildings solutions market, is a subsidiary of Eren Groupe, a market leader in renewable energy production and a pioneer in building decarbonization. For commercial and industrial buildings, Esmé Solutions provides managers with simple tools to take control of their real estate assets, manage energy costs, optimize operations, and deliver high-quality services to occupants. Esmé Solutions is a French company that goes beyond simply providing a Building Management System: as a reliable and trusted partner, the company provides services throughout the entire building lifecycle to ensure a high level of performance.
