SkyLab
The Port of Moerdijk, a Southern Netherlands municipality, installed a large 27-megawatt wind farm in 2020 to supply clean energy to more than 27,000 households in the area. This farm is operated by Vattenfall, one of the European leaders in green energy. Officials then realized the turbine towers could also serve an additional purpose: hosting an Internet of Things (IoT) network to connect the bustling port 120 meters below.
Kerlink carrier-grade outdoor LoRaWAN gateways receive sensor data and information in a radius of +/- 25 km, or 2,000 km2, and securely transfer it to users in an energy-efficient IoT network, as they will run entirely on green electricity. In addition to monitoring air quality, including CO2 emissions, sensors are used for monitoring water levels and open or closed bridges and gates around the port, which helps traffic move efficiently and reduces emissions.
“With these great results, we expect to expand the public Internet of Things into the wind industry, for example for on- and off-shore wind turbines. We usually do that on high buildings and towers. When we initiated talks with Port of Moerdijk, we got the idea during a brainstorm of using the wind-farm towers. Installing a gateway on a windmill. We have never done that before in the Netherlands, and to my knowledge, it hasn’t been done this way anywhere in the world.”
Remy de Jong, Sr SkyLab BV Technical Director
For more information about SkyLab BV please visit
https://www.skylab.nl/?lang=en
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