LPWAN SOLUTIONS
Cities and Councils
Smart Urban Infrastructure & Council Utility Management Solutions
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Stormwater, Sewer, and Flood Level Monitoring: Real-time tracking of water levels, surcharge events, and rate-of-rise across urban drains, culverts, manholes, and open waterways.
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Surface Water & Aquatic Health Surveillance: Continuous inline measurement of water quality and temperature across public lakes, reservoirs, and coastal foreshores.
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Pipeline Pressure & Leak Detection System: High-frequency dynamic pressure tracking to mitigate water hammer, detect subsurface pipe micro-fractures, and protect water distribution networks.
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Ultra-Low Power LPWAN Wireless Sensing: Deploy-and-forget, long-range LoRaWAN and NB-IoT nodes engineered with multi-year battery life for maintenance-free civic operation.
Smart Urban Infrastructure & Council Asset Management
Municipalities and local councils serve as the foundational stewards of public safety, civic livability, and local environmental resilience. Across urban centers, regional townships, and rural shires, local governments manage a massive, diverse portfolio of public assets and environmental systems: stormwater channels, drainage networks, flood barriers, public lakes, coastal waterways, civic parks, council facilities, and local distribution pipelines. Historically, council operations relied on reactive community reporting, manual site inspections, and scheduled routine maintenance. Today, progressive councils are adopting "Smart Cities" frameworks, integrating physical civic assets with long-range LPWAN edge sensing (LoRaWAN, NB-IoT/CAT-M1), low-power telemetry, and centralized analytics.
Within this framework, broad-scale environmental and hydraulic monitoring represents a critical operational priority. Distributed water and fluid assets—from subterranean stormwater culverts and creek catchments to public water features, storage tanks, and irrigation mains—are spread across vast geographic regions. Modern low-power wireless sensing bridges this visibility gap. By deploying ruggedized, battery-powered sensors dedicated strictly to measuring Level, Pressure, Flow, Water Quality, and Temperature, councils transform static, unmonitored civic operations into dynamic, data-driven environments that proactively mitigate flood risks, preserve natural ecosystems, safeguard public health, and optimize municipal budgets.
The modern smart city concept addresses the complete, interconnected ecosystem of municipal fluid and environmental infrastructure across urban planning, emergency management, environmental sustainability, and public works. Rather than treating stormwater drainage, public park management, flood control, and water features as isolated operations, modern council stewardship evaluates them as an integrated continuous ecosystem:
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Stormwater, Sewer, and Urban Flood Level Detection: Continuous surface and subterranean water level monitoring across urban stormwater drains, catchments, retention basins, culverts, manholes, and low-lying public zones. Utilizing high-precision hydrostatic, ultrasonic, and radar level sensors, real-time telemetry detects blockages, capacity limits, and rapidly rising water levels during heavy rainfall events. This triggers automated early warnings to council emergency management teams, enabling proactive clearing of blocked drainage channels and significantly reducing localized flash-flood damage to municipal property and private real estate.
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Open Water Quality, Reservoir, and Aquatic Ecosystem Surveillance: Monitoring critical ambient water quality parameters (pH, Electrical Conductivity / Salinity, Oxidation-Reduction Potential, Dissolved Oxygen, Turbidity, and Dissolved Ions) alongside water temperature across public lakes, urban creeks, coastal foreshores, retention ponds, and council-maintained reservoirs. Continuous water quality and temperature tracking provides early detection of chemical run-off, sewer overflows, toxic algal blooms, and oxygen depletion. This allows environmental officers to take swift corrective action to protect aquatic wildlife, maintain public safety at recreational water sites, and fulfill strict EPA environmental reporting compliance.
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Pressurized Water Distribution, Main Leakage, and Transient Pressure Monitoring: Continuous line pressure and flow rate tracking across council-owned irrigation networks, recycled water lines, district cooling loops, and municipal supply mains. High-frequency pressure sensors detect destructive transient shockwaves (water hammer) generated by sudden pump starts or fast-closing valves, while low-power inline or clamp-on flowmeters track consumption and mass balances across specific zones. By comparing flow and pressure profiles between off-peak hours, councils identify hidden subterranean pipe fractures and micro-leaks before catastrophic bursts occur, conserving valuable water resources and preventing expensive road surface subsidence.
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Public Amenity, Water Storage, and Tank Inventory Management: Precision hydrostatic level and temperature tracking in elevated storage tanks, diesel fuel reserves for backup generators, rain storage cisterns, public swimming pool balance tanks, and ornamental water features. Continuous level and temperature monitoring automates replenishment cycles, prevents pump dry-running, eliminates costly manual dipstick inspections, and alerts facilities managers to sudden fluid loss or freezing risks in exposed civic infrastructure.
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Irrigation Flow Optimization and Soil Hydrology Control: Integrated monitoring of irrigation line flow rates, pipeline pressure, and soil/water temperature across civic parks, sporting ovals, public gardens, and urban tree canopy programs. By coupling real-time flow and line pressure data with temperature readings, councils optimize automated irrigation schedules based on actual hydraulic delivery and environmental conditions. This eliminates water wastage from over-irrigation, verifies that sports turf receives optimal hydration, and flags broken sprinkler heads or line blockages instantly.
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Civic Facility Hydraulic and Thermal Energy Management: Monitoring fluid line pressure, system flow rates, and dynamic fluid temperatures across heating, ventilation, air-conditioning (HVAC) chilled/hot water loops, boiler feedwater systems, and domestic hot water lines in council offices, sports complexes, libraries, and community halls. Continuous tracking of temperature differentials and fluid flow rates enables precision thermal energy accounting, optimizes heat-exchanger performance, reduces facility electricity and gas consumption, and ensures compliance with public health temperature standards to prevent Legionella growth in hot water systems.
Core Advantages of Smart Council Infrastructure Management
Upgrading municipal operations with specialized LPWAN sensing focused on level, pressure, flow, water quality, and temperature delivers clear operational, financial, and environmental benefits for councils, local businesses, and communities:
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Active Flood Mitigation and Rapid Emergency Preparedness: Real-time water level and rate-of-rise alerts across stormwater networks, creeks, and low-lying roads give council response teams instant visibility during severe weather events. Automated telemetry allows crews to secure dangerous areas, deploy temporary flood barriers, and clear clogged drainage infrastructure before severe inundation occurs.
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Preservation of Natural Ecosystems and Public Health: Continuous inline and submerged monitoring of water quality parameters and water temperature prevents ecological collapse in public water bodies. Swift identification of sudden turbidity spikes, abnormal pH shifts, or low dissolved oxygen levels protects fish populations, prevents foul-odor events in suburban parks, and keeps recreational lakes safe for public use.
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Reduced Non-Revenue Water and Lower Repair Costs: Permanent pressure loggers and flowmeter telemetry identify small subsurface pipeline micro-fractures, valve failures, and unrecorded leaks before they cause major pipe blowouts. Reducing physical water loss conserves treated water resources, lowers pumping energy bills, and prevents costly emergency street excavations.
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Automated Regulatory Defensibility and Environmental Compliance: Continuous inline and open-water instrumentation logs water quality, turbidity, and discharge volume data automatically in real time. Automated cloud logging eliminates manual sampling errors, provides tamper-proof compliance records for regulatory authorities (such as the EPA), and protects local councils from regulatory fines and legal liabilities.
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Optimized Public Amenity and Irrigation Efficiency: Automated level, flow, and temperature tracking across parks, sports grounds, and council facilities optimizes irrigation schedules and water feature operations. This ensures public grounds remain vibrant and safe while drastically lowering municipal water usage costs and supporting council net-zero sustainability commitments.
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Extended Civic Asset Lifespan and Dynamic Maintenance: Shifting from routine calendar-based maintenance to condition-based monitoring prevents pump cavitation, thermal stress, dynamic pressure fatigue, and chemical corrosion in council water assets. Continuous pressure, flow, temperature, and level tracking extends the operational lifespan of expensive pumps, valves, and pipelines, maximizing the return on ratepayer capital investments.
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Ruggedized, Multi-Year Maintenance-Free LPWAN Operation: Deploying purpose-built LPWAN (LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, Satellite-IoT) sensor nodes ensures reliable wireless signal penetration through concrete manholes, subterranean vaults, and remote catchments. Featuring ultra-low power electronics and industrial battery packs, these sensors operate for up to 5–10 years without external power or maintenance, delivering an exceptionally low total cost of ownership (TCO) for municipal deployments. Learn More
Find the Right Monitoring Solution for Your Application
Every industrial site operates under unique constraints—whether you are managing remote water infrastructure, protecting critical equipment, or automating environmental compliance. Ellenex simplifies IoT deployment by offering pre-engineered, battery-powered monitoring solutions configured for your specific operational needs.
To help you quickly find the exact setup for your project, explore our solution portfolio through two distinct lenses:
Solutions by Asset Performance
Deploying Industrial IoT is not just about mounting hardware—it is about maximizing the value, reliability, and lifespan of your physical infrastructure. Our Asset Performance solutions are designed to address the core operational challenges faced by site managers, reliability engineers, and enterprise leaders. By combining battery-powered LPWAN sensors (NB-IoT / LTE Cat-M1 and LoRaWAN) with real-time telemetry on the Ellenex Platform, we turn raw equipment data into actionable operational intelligence.
Solutions by Sensor Type
While asset performance focuses on the health and lifespan of your physical infrastructure, Solutions by Operational Purpose targets your core business and operational objectives. Every industrial facility operates with specific targets—whether that means eliminating manual inventory audits, cutting carbon emissions, preventing environmental contamination, or automating workflows.
Level Monitoring Solutions
Water Quality Monitoring Solutions
Frequently Asked Questions
How do wireless sensors help councils manage stormwater networks and mitigate urban flood risks?
Municipalities face mounting pressure to protect urban communities from localized flash flooding caused by extreme weather events. Traditional stormwater management relies on periodic physical inspections and manual clearing of catchments, which often leaves drainage blockages undetected until severe water logging or property damage occurs. Continuous digital monitoring bridges this visibility gap by transforming subterranean channels, culverts, and low-lying road zones into transparent, self-reporting networks.
Ellenex addresses this operational challenge with dedicated LPWAN hydrostatic and surface level sensors (such as the PLS2, PLS3, and DUS3 series) paired with non-intrusive radar distance devices (DRC3). Deployed inside stormwater manholes, retention basins, and open drainage channels, these ruggedized, battery-operated devices continuously sample water levels and rate-of-rise metrics. Transmitting real-time telemetry over LoRaWAN or NB-IoT networks, Ellenex solutions trigger immediate automated alerts to emergency management teams when rising water thresholds are breached, enabling proactive debris clearing and rapid response before severe inundation impacts civic infrastructure.
Why is continuous water quality and temperature tracking essential for public lakes and natural waterways?
Public lakes, suburban creeks, and coastal foreshores are highly vulnerable to urban run-off, sewer overflows, chemical contamination, and summer heatwaves. Stagnant or polluted water bodies can quickly suffer from dissolved oxygen depletion and toxic algal blooms, resulting in severe fish kills, foul public odors, and public health hazards in recreational zones. Manual water sampling is slow, labor-intensive, and provides only sporadic snapshot data that often misses dynamic environmental shifts.
Ellenex delivers continuous aquatic ecosystem surveillance through its line of low-power industrial water quality and temperature sensors, including the CPH2 (pH), CSD2 (Conductivity and Salinity), CTR2 (Turbidity), CDO2 (Dissolved Oxygen), and TTS2 (Temperature) series. Installed directly in lakes, streams, or water treatment outputs, these sensors measure critical chemical and thermal indicators. By delivering continuous telemetry via LPWAN platforms, Ellenex solutions empower council environmental officers to detect sudden turbidity spikes or dropping oxygen levels in real time, rapidly isolate pollution sources, protect local wildlife, and maintain verifiable EPA compliance.
How can councils reduce Non-Revenue Water (NRW) and identify hidden pipe leaks in supply networks?
Subterranean pipeline leaks, unrecorded consumption, and pipe bursts represent significant financial and resource losses for municipal water utilities. Buried distribution mains and park irrigation loops are susceptible to dynamic stress caused by transient shockwaves (water hammer) from sudden valve closures or pump starts. Without continuous monitoring, micro-fractures in underground pipes can leak thousands of liters for months before manifesting as surface erosion or main blowouts.
Ellenex mitigates water loss using high-precision pressure sensors (such as the PTS2, PTD2, and PTS3 series) alongside inline flowmeters and retrofittable smart water meter interfaces (FMS2). Installed at critical nodes across municipal distribution networks, these sensors continuously track dynamic line pressure and volumetric flow. High-frequency sampling detects destructive transient spikes so pressure-reducing valves can be adjusted, while night-flow data logging pinpoints abnormal pressure drops and micro-leaks, enabling targeted repairs before costly infrastructure failures occur.
How do smart level and temperature sensors improve council asset management and public amenities?
Local councils maintain an extensive range of fluid storage assets, including elevated potable water tanks, diesel fuel reserves for backup generators, rain storage cisterns, public pool balance tanks, and ornamental fountains. Manually checking tank levels and liquid temperatures requires dedicated maintenance crews to conduct frequent site visits, exposing workers to unnecessary safety hazards and leaving facilities vulnerable to unexpected pump dry-running, overflow incidents, or thermal degradation.
Ellenex simplifies amenity management by deploying submersible level transmitters (PLS2, PLC2) and industrial temperature sensors (TTS2) to automate inventory tracking. These rugged, IP68-rated nodes provide continuous visibility into fluid volume and dynamic liquid temperatures without requiring site visits. Facilities managers receive automated threshold alerts when storage levels drop or temperatures shift, enabling automated pump control, preventing pump damage, protecting exposed infrastructure from freezing or overheating, and optimizing municipal maintenance schedules.
What makes Ellenex LPWAN sensors suited for long-term municipal and sub-surface deployments?
Deploying digital sensors in civic environments presents unique structural challenges, including lack of mains power in remote areas, signal attenuation through concrete manholes, and harsh weather conditions. Councils require sensor hardware that can be installed quickly without expensive civil works, trenching, or frequent battery replacements, ensuring a low total cost of ownership (TCO) across thousands of municipal assets. Learn More
Ellenex purpose-builds its sensor suite specifically for long-term, maintenance-free operations in demanding field conditions. Utilizing ultra-low power electronics paired with high-capacity primary battery chemistries, Ellenex LoRaWAN, NB-IoT, and Satellite-IoT nodes operate reliably for up to 5 to 10 years without external power or maintenance. Housed in ruggedized, IP65 to IP68 weather-proof enclosures, these pre-configured devices penetrate deep subterranean vaults and concrete structures to deliver long-range data transmission, offering councils a seamless, "deploy-and-forget" solution.
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