Smart Utilities IoT Success
Learn why Innovation: Africa (iA) chose to collaborate with Eseye to make clean water and energy available to the most deserving communities in rural Africa.
There are 620 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa currently living without electricity, while 400 million have no access to safe drinking water. Only 34% of medical centres and less than 25% of schools across Africa have access to electricity. Without it, there is no access to quality education or safe healthcare.
Founded in 2008, Innovation: Africa (iA) is a non-profit organisation on a mission to build solar energy and water installations in off-grid villages, schools and medical centres.
iA builds water towers up to 10 metres tall with solar panels attached, which capture energy from the sun and use it to pump groundwater to a tank at the top of the structure, from where it can be distributed via a system of pipes.
These pipes lead to 10-15 water tap stations throughout the village and give the community access to up to 30,000 litres of fresh clean water. In addition to providing water to remote villages in Africa, iA also uses solar technologies to provide electricity to schools and medical centres, drastically improving their health and economic outcomes.
Outages risk leaving people in the dark
To ensure there’s no interruption in the delivery of these essential services, iA implements its in-house Remote Monitoring Technology at each location. This system uses smart IoT devices, connected via cellular technology, to enable the team at iA’s headquarters in Israel to track the amount of electricity and water consumed. It also sends alerts if a malfunction occurs, so the problem can be quickly rectified.
Achieving the comprehensive cellular coverage required to guarantee continuous, reliable monitoring was a major challenge. All of iA’s installations are in remote areas that are typically underserved by mobile network operators, and suffer from patchy reception. Any drop in connectivity could result in villagers being left without water and light.
A lack of connectivity options also threatened iA’s ambitions to expand its footprint of solar installations across multiple African countries. Its existing connectivity provider was unable to provide coverage in all of the areas it wanted to reach.
Eseye’s AnyNet+ SIMs automatically connect to the best available mobile network, wherever the installation is, and switch to an alternative if there’s an interruption.
Using Eseye's Infinity IoT Platform™ allows iA to monitor vital solar and water installations in rural villages across multiple African countries, centrally, via a single view.
To date, iA has completed more than 900 battery-powered solar and water installations in 950 villages across 10 African countries, bringing access to energy and clean water to over 4.2 million people.
iA began to embed Eseye’s multi-IMSI AnyNet+ eSIMs into each of the remote monitoring units it deployed in the field.
Straight out-of-the-box, the AnyNet+ eSIM automatically detects and connects to the best available mobile network in the location. It is also able to switch instantly to another if there’s an outage, or network latency risks a delay in data transfer. This keeps data flowing consistently, enabling iA to monitor the performance of each of its installations in real-time.
Thanks to this ubiquitous global connectivity, iA has been able to successfully initiate two new operations in Malawi and Cameroon.
Take a deeper dive into Innovation: Africa's IoT journey. Find out how we helped them overcome hurdles and challenges that might stall your IoT project, and see how we can help your business succeed with IoT.
Read MoreEseye’s AnyNet Federation grants customers like iA access to more than 700 cellular networks in over 190 countries. Each eSIM can be loaded with multiple network user profiles before shipping, and more can be added remotely over the air after deployment, future-proofing the device and project.
To keep everything running smoothly, Eseye offers iA ongoing technical support to optimise service quality. “The Eseye team exhibits a high level of professionalism, always available and eager to assist,” says Meir Ya’acoby.
The AnyNet+ eSIMs communicate seamlessly with the GateTel modems used by iA in its remote monitoring units, transmitting data on performance and status gathered by the device to the team at headquarters via iA’s proprietary web application and in-house servers.
Eseye’s Infinity IoT Connectivity Management Platform gives the iA team visibility of device and connection status across its entire estate. They can oversee the data from each and every water and solar system they have installed across rural Africa, all through a single view and managed centrally from the iA headquarters in Israel. This paints a real-time picture of the amount of electricity and water used, and integrates with iA’s UN award-winning remote monitoring system.
More than 4.2 million people are now benefiting from iA’s solar energy and water installations, in Malawi, Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, South Africa, DRC, Senegal, Cameroon, Zambia and Swatini.
To date, Eseye’s connectivity solution is helping to keep more than 250 units operating smoothly. iA has plans to expand its estate, delivering an additional 1,200 projects that will have a positive impact on health and quality of life for 10 million people. It is also planning future enhancements to its platform, including the capability to send and receive SMS messages between villages and the team managing the deployment at HQ.
To learn more about the work of Innovation: Africa, visit their website: https://innoafrica.org/
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