Horizons Regional Council Project

Client: Horizons Regional Council

Project: Flow Meter Data Logging IoT

Brands: Metasphere – PT Orange IoT RTU

Pacific Technologies was awarded the 5-year supply and service contract by Horizons Regional Council after a rigorous selection process by the Council.

Background

Horizons Regional Council’s Region extends over 22,200km2 – from Ruapehu in the north and Horowhenua in the south, to Whanganui in the west and Tararua in the east. It’s a landscape as vast and varied as the nearly 240,000 people who call it home. They are upgrading their data loggers for water meters as part of a hydrology infrastructure upgrade. Background for this project includes: Horizons manages the data collection from its region’s water meters; they have over 430 units installed. Horizons standard installation is solar based with a pulse output from the flow meter. The solution required would also need to be compatible with the IoT networks being rolled out as well as power level sensors for river flood mitigation systems.

Key features required:

  • Be robust and environmentally resistant for field deployment
  • Record either pulse or Modbus serial output from the water meters
  • Power level sensors for flood mitigation systems
  • Utilize future-proof spectrum on the Vodafone and Spark network CAT LTE, NB-IOT
  • The hardware must be low power with either long life battery or on-board solar recharge
  • Adequate data storage (6 months) for parameters measured with an industry standard data protocol for remote telemetry (DNP3, Modbus, MQTT or similar)
  • Remotely configurable

Pacific Technologies Solution:

Point Orange is a self-contained RTU with an internal and our NZ made Solar Pack, IP68 unit enclosure, either a 4G (NB-IoT/ CaT-M1) or tri-band 3G modem, and quad band GSM/GPRS fallback, auto-switching internal and external antenna options, software configurable AI, CI, DI, Modbus and SDI-12 communication options, integrated submersion sensor, local diagnostic points and intelligent alarm reporting. It communicates with Metasphere’s Master Control System, DNP3/ WITS DNP3 Masters or FTPS servers.