HEP-Plin digitises 15,000 gas meters with ThingsTalk’s IoT-enabled meter reading solution connected to IoT Net Adria’s 0G Network in Croatia
Challenges
Founded in 1975, HEP-Plin is the largest natural gas supplier and distributor in Croatia, providing gas to tens of thousands of customers across a distribution network spanning over 4,000 KM. A rapidly growing distribution network and rising gas prices meant HEP-Plin needed a reliable solution for frequent, accurate, remote gas meter readings across Croatia.
Solution
IoT gas metering solution positioned on ThingsTalk platform as a service, connected to IoT Net Adria’s 0G Network, enabled HEP-Plin to monitor gas consumption remotely, 24 x 7. It is the first massive IoT implementation in Croatia.
Results
- Reduce reading errors by 20x
- Lower admin time on billing cycles by 80%
- Operations and maintenance savings by 25%
- Improve cost savings through better consumption insights
- Automate daily reports to the market regulator
0G IoT Solution Provider
IoT Net Adria is the exclusive 0G IoT Solution Provider in Croatia that launches and sells low-energy broadband wireless technology (LPWA) connectivity for IoT, enabling connected devices to send signals cost-effectively, energy-efficiently, and securely. Our mission is to build a complete ecosystem of innovative IoT solutions and services in Croatia for multiple verticals, including manufacturing, agriculture, health, transport and transportation, banking, insurance, environmental protection, and smart cities.
Solution Partner
An innovative IoT service provider. ThingsTalk is fast building a reputation as a team that listens to customers to design and deliver fit-for-purpose data-driven service that unlock tangible business value and create new service offerings. We offer clients access to the latest technologies with affordable cost of ownership, short implementation period, wholehearted support, and insight into investment potential.
Customer
HEP-Plin is the largest natural gas distributor in Croatia. With more than 40 years of experience supplying and distributing natural gas, HEP-Plin runs a distribution network spanning over 3,500 kilometres and approximately 93,000 PODs. The company’s strategy is to develop and build its distribution network and implement new technologies to optimise the maintenance, safety, and security of natural gas supplies.
No one appreciates data more than the team of meter readers at HEP-Plin. You need to do the job to understand the challenges of manually reading gas meters. Gas meters are typically positioned discreetly, in hard-to-reach or inaccessible places, within the privacy of a customer’s property. Protective caps are often hard to open, the tiny screens difficult to see, and customers are only sometimes welcoming. Physically visiting each property takes time, and manually capturing readings invariably introduces mistakes.
Historically, HEP-Plin’s meter reading occurred monthly. Such long periods between readings meant slow billing cycles, poor visibility into consumption, and leaks that went undetected for months. The challenge of capturing and sharing manually gathered meter data was a relentless, resource-intensive, error-prone task .
- Our Croatian customers rely on HEP-Plin to power homes and offices daily. We take the responsibility of providing a safe, secure, reliable gas service at affordable prices across our distribution network seriously, particularly with the energy uncertainty of the 2020s. With over 100,000 customers, a rapidly expanding distribution network, and fluctuating gas prices, we needed a solution to improve the accuracy and frequency of gas meter readings – our business relies on the data.
Damir Pećušak, CEO at HEP-Plin
How ThingsTalk and IoT Net Adria designed and delivered a remote IoT gas meter reading solution for HEP-Plin.
Using the Internet of Things (IoT), ThingsTalk and IoT Net Adria developed a turnkey remote gas meter reading solution for HEP-Plin to capture, process, and manage gas meter data. Out of the box, the solution included mounting ThingsTalk sensors powered by long-life batteries on traditional gas meters. Field technicians connected each sensor to the IoT Net Adria 0G Network, powered by Sigfox 0G technology, and an enterprise-grade IoT platform.
By the end of 2022, ThingsTalk and IoT Net Adria had installed and connected over 15,000 IoT gas meters for HEP-Plin clients. The goal is to expand the installation of IoT gas meters to whole operating gas meters network- at the moment 125000 clients with possibilities to enlarge on 250000 clients.
- For natural gas companies, our mission is to provide a complete remote gas meter monitoring solution that enables customers to improve their core business strategically. ThingsTalk IoT solutions deliver high-quality, reliable data, compliant with ISO and GDPR guidelines, that help customers create meaningful insights to enhance end-to-end operational efficiencies.
- Dora Šegović, ThingsTalk Product Manager
Why connect HEP-Plin’s IoT gas meters to the 0G Network?
IoT Net Adria’s 0G Network is the public, low-cost, low-power, wide-area network that connects IoT devices over long distances. The 0G Network connects devices indoors, outdoors, and through environments where traditional connectivity solutions struggle to provide reliable network coverage.
- “We recommended the 0G Network to connect HEP-Plin’s gas meters because of its long-range, reliable connectivity and because connecting IoT sensors to it is as straightforward as building IKEA furniture. Flexible and easy to integrate with a wide range of other communication protocols, the 0G Network also seamlessly integrates with specific industry protocols designed by gas meter manufacturers.
- Ljubo Jakić, ThingsTalk Product Manager
- No matter what the industry, IoT solutions have powerful potential to improve processes, transform operations, or evolve business models. At HEP-Plin, powering IoT gas meter sensors with cost-effective, long-life batteries introduced compelling time and money savings. First, through fewer maintenance visits by field technicians. Second, because battery power avoids the need for connecting sensors to a traditional power supply which is never placed near a natural gas line for safety reasons
- Ranko Režek, CEO at IoT Net Adria
IoT-enabled outcomes for HEP-Plin from strategically solving a familiar meter reading challenge
HEP-Plin new IoT solution fully automates gas meter reading and provides high-quality data to improve operational efficiencies across its operations including:
- Automated, simplified meter reading that reduced errors by 20 times
- Decreased administrative time for preparing monthly bills by 80 percent
- A single, consolidated meter data view that helped cut operating costs by 25 percent
- Improved customer experience through data-driven insights enabling better billing, outage updates, consumption visibility, and complaint resolution.
In the field, HEP-Plin equipped technicians with mobile applications integrated with GPS readings and smartphone cameras to improve the efficiency of service provisioning, maintenance, and customer service.
Critically, for industrial gas meters, the IoT solution enabled HEP-Plin to meet various legislative and compliance reporting requirements and streamline updates to the market regulator with automated daily reporting.
HEP-Plin’s future is bright with remote IoT-driven gas meter reading.
HEP-Plin’s future with remote gas meter readings is bright, with data-driven IoT insights creating new business opportunities and areas of operational improvement. The team is already considering how to leverage IoT meter data into additional business applications. Efforts are underway to use historical meter data and weather forecast information to build
statistical models to predict gas consumption that simplify future operational tasks across HEP-Plin’s business. A strategic vision to introduce a mobile application to help households control consumption is gathering momentum too.
- “Transformation” is an over-used word, but the remote gas meter reading solution designed and delivered for HEP-Plin by ThingsTalk and IoT Net Adria is a compelling case study of how fit-for-purpose IoT solutions can genuinely transform business operations and prospects by unlocking data that already exists inside an organisation. Efficient, low-power IoT sensors connected to the 0G Network capture data that businesses can use to drive unexpected insights that simplify operations, save costs, and uncover new business opportunities.
- Arnaud Celie, Vertical Go-to-Market Manager at UnaBiz