The Role of LoRaWAN in Sustainable Development of Public Utilities: from Metering to Incident Prediction

Why LoRaWAN

Unlike cellular solutions, LoRaWAN is optimized for infrequent, small telemetry packets and deep signal penetration, in places such as basements, pits, heat-exchange rooms, and metal enclosures. 

A single gateway can serve neighborhoods and industrial zones, and one radio domain can simultaneously handle water, heat, gas, electricity, and street lighting. This results in significant efficiency savings and lowers total cost of ownership (TCO), with less infrastructure, unified procedures, and a shared control room. 

Protocol-level cryptography (AES-128 with separate network and application keys) simplifies compliance with data-protection requirements, enabling the use of IoT in public utilities.

From Metering to Control: where LoRaWAN delivers maximum impact

Transparent, frequent (hourly/daily) metering is the foundation of any project. Obtaining accurate readings without manual rounds changes operating economics: utilities are able to see leaks and unmetered connections, can correct balances, and avoid lengthy recalculations—these are just some examples of smart metering technology being used to improve data-driven decision making.

The next level in operations is “telemetry + events”, and includes pressure and temperature sensors, tamper/open detection, magnetic influence, leak alarms, reverse-flow and pump dry-run signals. This is where predictive analytics for utilities emerges, with data-driven models being used to detect anomalies, forecast failures, and recommend targeted interventions—shifting the focus from firefighting to prevention through LoRaWAN predictive maintenance.

Key LoRaWAN application scenarios in public utilities

Remote metering of water, heat, gas, and electricity: This facilitates the objectives of sustainable cities. Devices transmit cumulative indexes and interval consumption, as well as building load profiles and hourly CO₂e series, all helping to make billing precise and decarbonization reports verifiable.

Water distribution management: Utility automation is increased using networked pressure sensors and designated DMA zones, complemented by telemetry-enabled PRVs. This allows timely pressure reduction, lower background losses, and prevents water hammer.

District heating optimization: Monitoring ΔT, flow, and thermal power, together with valves and mixing units, helps equalize regimes, eliminate “overheating,” and improve energy efficiency—adopting renewable energy integration where applicable.

Gas digitalization: Pulse radio modules on meters record tampering and detect abnormal consumption, reducing unaccounted-for gas and improving industrial safety with enhanced fault detection practices.

Smart street lighting: Energy saving smart infrastructure such as controllers and motion sensors enable adaptive “light on demand” dimming, reducing energy use and light pollution without sacrificing safety.

Integration with city platforms: Linking GIS, billing/ERP, SCADA/PCS, and BI shelves provides unified KPIs, MRV procedures, and automated reporting, creating consistent municipal services dashboards and comparability.

Predictive analytics and preventive maintenance

Once telemetry is stable, anomaly detection models and predictive algorithms are introduced. For segments with incident history, supervised methods (gradient boosting, random forest, LSTM for time series) are suitable. Where archives are sparse, unsupervised approaches (Isolation Forest, anomaly autoencoders) and physico-statistical threshold models perform well. The practical outcome of LoRaWAN accident prediction is early detection of unusual leak profiles, nocturnal “breathing” of pressure, temperature jumps, and atypical electric load spikes. This reduces non-revenue losses, decreases pump energy, extends pipe life, lowers emergency callouts, and accelerates restoration times.

Data, quality, and reproducibility

Solution robustness rests on three blocks: completeness, timeliness, and plausibility of data. These KPIs should be computed automatically at the platform level. A data catalog records metric dictionaries (units, k-factors, event masks), firmware and configuration versions, and change history. This ensures that audits are completed correctly and enables before/after comparability when evaluating measures (insulation, valve replacement, dimming, pressure reduction) using data analytics.

Cybersecurity by default

LoRaWAN separates network and application security by design. Recommended practices include OTAA activation with session-key rotation, key storage in HSM/KMS, Basics Station with TLS, and mutual authentication between gateway and network server. Internal backends are segmented, with RBAC, MFA, and immutable audit logs. 

These practices simplify operations, mitigate regulatory risks and support confidence in digital metering—an important aspect of low power networks operating at scale.

Economics and sustainability: how to quantify the effect

The economic impact of using LoRaWAN monitoring systems appears in three ways. 

First, reduced losses and energy use (pumps/fans, overheating, unmetered consumption). Second, lower OPEX by eliminating walk-by readings and accelerating billing, as well as fewer penalties and legal costs related to billing disputes, all yielding tangible cost reduction. Third, CAPEX smoothing through the use of predictive models which allow staged replacements and targeted investments where failure risk is highest. 

Additionally, the utility obtains consistent time series for ESG/CSRD reporting and access to green financing.

Implementation: from pilot to a citywide program

The first step is usually a compact pilot zone (200–300 nodes) with representative conditions: basements and pits, dense urban fabric, arterials. The pilot should include at least one resource loop (e.g., water) and one control loop (e.g., lighting) to validate network and cloud scalability and integration with billing/GIS. Outcomes include a baseline, expected KPIs (share of successful reads, NRW reduction, kWh savings), and refinements to RF planning and transmission profiles—groundwork for the rollout of IoT sensors.

A practical LoRaWAN roadmap for utilities

Survey and RF plan: inventory of nodes and power/mounting points, coverage and capacity calculations, backend choice (cloud/on-prem), security policy.

Pilot and integrations: gateway installation, meter/sensor onboarding, platform setup, integration with billing/SCADA/GIS, data-quality monitoring launch.

Scaling: standard profiles and configurations, training for staff and contractors, SLAs for data delivery/processing, maintenance procedures.

Predictive analytics: anomaly/forecast models, area “risk panels,” prevention and replacement plans, regular effect reviews.

MRV and reporting: monitoring/reporting/verification procedures, data catalog, configuration versions, public KPIs for consumers and the regulator.

LoRaWAN has become the technological foundation of sustainable utilities, providing single networks for diverse services, transparent and frequent data, built-in security, and readiness for prediction. With its use, utilities are able to move away from reactive repairs to managed prevention, from averaged norms to precise billing, and from fragmented projects to a unified city program with measurable goals in savings, quality, and environmental outcomes.

Underpinning the advancement of IoT in public utilities, the earlier the framework for LoRaWAN sustainable development across the urban fabric is established, the quicker the positive effects will be seen—in budgets, in infrastructure reliability, and in public trust.