LoRaWAN for Smart Utilities: Maximizing Efficiency Through Leading Connectivity Choice
Many manufacturing companies, utilities and metering experts from the whole world will gather in Bilbao to attend ENLIT to see the latest innovations, best demo of products and learn more on key advantages of connectivity.
For 10 years, LoRaWAN technology has emerged as the fastest growing connectivity solution for the digital transformation of utilities with IoT worldwide. There are more than 100 million of LoRaWAN® connected devices worldwide. The LoRa Alliance forecasts annual growth of +25% per year. LoRaWAN connectivity is gaining strong traction in smart metering with large-scale water and gas meter rollouts on going for multi-million-unit deployments in EMEA, North America and China.
The Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) is driving submetering market to adopt more connectivity
Utilities and meter industry in European Union are facing regulations, at country and global levels, requiring efforts to contribute to the global goal of energy savings. The Energy Efficiency Directive adopted in the European Union (EED 2018/2002, Articles 9) mandates that all new submeters for domestic hot water, heat or cooling systems installed from 1 January 2027 must be remotely readable. The purpose is that final customers are provided with meters that accurately reflect their actual energy consumption. (Source: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2018/2002/oj/eng)
Proven Success at Scale
Recent deployments demonstrate LoRaWAN's transformative impact across Europe. ZENNER, now operating the world’s largest LoRaWAN® network, reached a historic milestone in September 2025 by integrating its 10 millionth sensor. Spanning 15 countries, this achievement highlights LoRaWAN’s scalability and reliability for massive IoT deployments, especially for utilities with smart metering and smart city applications.
ZENNER’s Best Practice projects demonstrate how its LoRaWAN network and Element IoT platform deliver tangible value across multiple sectors, such as digital IoT backbone for metering and further use cases. From various metering applications, in Amberg and Dillingen Germany, the public utilities use their LoRaWAN network for the AMR use case but also provide the network for other Smart City use cases. The Energienetze Hamburg even established with ZENNER the biggest urban LoRaWAN-network in German with more than 600 gateways and more than 40.000 sensors — those examples show how ZENNER’s unified infrastructure supports diverse smart-city services with minimal operational effort. The benefits for the utilities are great and manifold, Stadtwerke Amberg is making their buildings smarter and can reduce heating cost with smart thermostats by 25%, Stadtwerke Dillingen can reduce their maintenance works for their low-voltage-network substation by monitoring them and Energienetze Hamburg are generating totally new revenue streams for them in order to be the local IoT infrastructure provider for their public utilities.
Together, these use cases exemplify ZENNER’s end-to-end approach to scalable, energy-efficient, and interoperable IoT — demonstrating how LoRaWAN is driving real-world transformation in utilities and cities worldwide.
Netmore Group with public LoRaWAN network coverage in 18 countries has been awarded for a total of 6,5 million smart water meters. Plus, Netmore is offering now meter as a service to utilities leading one of Europe's largest water metering projects in partnership with Yorkshire Water, deploying 1.3 million LoRaWAN-connected smart water meters across the Yorkshire region through 2030. Early results are impressive: over 1,000 customer-side leaks identified, 1.22 megaliters of water saved daily in the initial phase, and anticipated reduction of 8 megaliters of leakage per day upon full deployment. This success earned recognition through the 2024 IoT Excellence Award, validating LoRaWAN's role in addressing critical water conservation challenges. Recently in September, Netmore announced new award from Severn Trent for +1 million water meters to be connected in UK.
The Dual Connectivity Advantage
While LoRaWAN provides exceptional long-range, low-power connectivity, the integration of dual wM-Bus and LoRaWAN connectivity in smart meters represents a significant advancement in utility infrastructure reliability. This hybrid approach combines the best of both protocols:
wM-Bus advantages: European-standardized protocol (EN 13757-4), proven interoperability through OMS certification, optimized for local meter reading with walk-by/drive-by collection, and regulatory compliance in many European markets.
Moreover, the standardization through OMS Technical Report 06 specified by OMS and LoRa Alliance jointly and now part of the European Norm EN 13757-8:2023 ensures seamless integration, allowing utilities to maintain their existing OMS data platforms while leveraging LoRaWAN's extensive network infrastructure. Leading manufacturers including ZENNER, Birdz, Axioma, Elvaco, and Kamstrup now offer dual-mode meters featuring OMS over LoRaWAN capabilities.
With this, utilities can integrate metering data from new LoRaWAN meters without changing their legacy system built on M-Bus standard.
LoRaWAN advantages: Long-range coverage (up to several kilometers), ultra-low power consumption with 10–20-year battery life, bidirectional communication for remote configuration. The OMSv4 over LoRaWAN allows interoperability on the data level with clear benefits of low power and longer range for reading smart meters with LoRa modulation used by LoRaWAN. Furthermore, the scalable infrastructure allows share costs and enables multiple applications for smart cities.
Maximizing Collection Efficiency and Migration path
Dual connectivity ensures near-100% meter reading collection rates by providing built-in redundancy and flexibility. If the primary LoRaWAN connectivity experiences issue, the meter can automatically switch to wM-Bus mode for walk-by or drive-by collection. This embedded fallback strategy eliminates data loss and maintains service continuity. Or, if the utility has a legacy wM-bus network infrastructure, it’s possible to deploy new meters having capability to migrate one day to a newly activated LoRaWAN network. Migration is the second use case for having dual connectivity.
For submetering, with the EED pushing for adoption of connectivity, it can be a strategic opportunity to adopt LoRaWAN instead of wM-bus for adding new safety system beside of the submeters in multi-story buildings and households. Today, the ecosystem offers choice of many different detectors of air quality, CO2 or smoke, plus water leak sensors and emergency lights. All this equipment can be available for LoRaWAN and augment the value of a local LoRaWAN network for smart building.
For utilities metering, the business case is compelling. Utilities can maximize collection efficiency, share LoRaWAN network costs across multiple tenants and applications, transition smoothly from legacy systems without wholesale replacements, achieve superior ROI through reduced operational expenses, and future-proof investments with standards-based interoperability.
Visit Us at ENLIT 2025
Join us at the LoRa Alliance booth (November 18-20, 2025, Spain) to explore how LoRaWAN solutions are transforming utility operations worldwide. Experience live demonstrations, connect with industry experts, and discover how your organization can benefit from the world's leading LPWAN technology for smart utilities.
The future of smart metering is here—and it speaks LoRaWAN.
--
Interested in becoming a guest blogger for the LoRa Alliance®? Please contact marketing@lora-alliance.com with your blog idea and draft.
