Emitel, in cooperation with AIUT, is to build an innovative system for reading water meter parameters for Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Wodociągów i Kanalizacji (Municipal Water and Sewage Company) in Wrocław. It is the first Polish smart city project of such a great scale, employing LoRaWAN network which will be designed and built by Emitel.
For the implementation of the readout system for water meters featuring IoT modules, MPWiK in Wrocław chose a consortium led by Emitel. The project will include creation of a network whose range will cover the entire Wrocław, additionally, water meters will have special devices provided by AIUT installed on them, to enable wireless communication. Emitel will also ensure maintenance and service of the entire system for MPWiK.
It is one of the largest municipal Internet of Things (IoT) projects in Poland. As a target, it will cover more than 70 thousand metering devices. The supplied solutions will also ensure broader communication with devices located in hardly accessible locations, such as deep wells or cellars. In order to implement the network design, Emitel will employ LoRaWAN technology, which was previously successfully used by the company during IoT projects in other cities. Implementation in Wrocław will commence in May this year.
“We believe that a modern city is a joint project of residents, local authorities and companies. Wrocław is among Polish leaders in Smart City solutions implementation, and LoRaWAN-based technologies are one of the pillars to make our city also the Polish capital of the Internet of Things,” says Witold Ziomek – President of the Board of Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Wodociągów i Kanalizacji in Wrocław.
Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are crucial in building smart cities. Modern cities are to be friendly to the environment and to the residents. Solutions prepared by Emitel are consistent with the challenges faced by Polish cities nowadays.
“The coronavirus pandemic has accelerated implementation of the projects which not only enable cost reduction and effectiveness increase, but also influence an improvement in residents’ life quality and support the environmental protection goals. Our innovative solutions make it possible to use the potential of technology in construction of smart cities. We strive for becoming the leader in Internet of Things solutions in Poland, and cooperation with such experienced companies as AIUT lets us respond to the needs of our customers even better. It is worth noting that SmartCity solutions are designed not only for major cities, therefore we expect that Polish local government will be highly interested in our offer. Such projects may be driven by funds available, among others, as part of the National Recovery Plan,” says Andrzej Kozłowski, President of the Board of Emitel S.A.
Emitel has 521 high-rise and telecommunication structures throughout Poland (as of 31 – th December 2020). Using its infrastructure and experience, for years, the company has been developing communication for the needs of IoT City, based on Long Range Radio technology. The availability of such solutions is supposed to stimulate the development of services based on low-energy networks in Poland. LoRaWAN enables long-distance communication between devices, with minimum Energy consumption.
Emitel implements the project for MPWiK in Wrocław in partnership with AIUT – a Polish company established in Gliwice in 1991. Today, AIUT is one of the major European integrators of industrial systems, specializing in IoT solutions. In the project, AIUT is responsible, among others, for data management software, integration of systems and the reporting model.
“Using IoT technology for water consumption monitoring allows not only to charge customers for their actual consumption on a monthly basis but – above all – it reduces water losses and significantly improves the efficiency of infrastructure management processes. This translates into lower costs for the water utility company and consumers as well. The stationary system that we’re now implementing in Wrocław will provide automatic daily water meter readouts, without the need to collect the readouts by an inspector in traditional, time-and-resource-consuming ways as was the case with the older generation of systems. The solution will allow to control the actual water consumption and effectively plan its purchase. It will also enable faster detection of leaks and failures while reducing water losses” says Marek Gabryś, President of the Board of AIUT Sp. z o.o.
This is yet another implementation of Smart City solutions conducted in Wrocław by Emitel S.A. Emitel and Wrocław City Hall have successfully completed test implementation of a system detecting occupied parking spaces. The tests involved installation of sensors at temporary parking lots, where coaches may park for up to 15 minutes, and in holding parking lots, with no parking time limit. The project covered nearly half of all available parking lots for coaches, located in the area of major tourist attractions in the city center and the area near Wrocław ZOO.