The Spanish city of Valencia is deploying air quality sensors, LoRaWAN and decentralised wireless networks to gather real-time data to better protect its most vulnerable citizens. Valencia’s Fundació Clima i Energia has installed over 130 air quality sensors using Helium Network’s LoRaWAN ecosystem in collaboration with Damal Redes. More deployments are expected in 2024.

Spain’s third-largest city is facing the challenge of energy poverty – a lack of adequate, affordable, and reliable environmentally sound energy services, which affects 23% of its households. Health complications resulting from energy poverty include respiratory diseases, heart attacks, stroke, mental disorders, and acute health issues such as hypothermia, injury, or flu.

Valencia has integrated the Helium Network, a people-powered IoT Network. The Helium ecosystem integrates with LoRaWAN technology optimized for battery-operated, low-power devices.

“Damal Redes, a renowned Valencia-based company established in March 2007, specializes in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT). Valencia’s Fundació Clima i Energia leads and supervises the Wellbased and Ebento projects, with Damal Redes serving as their trusted technological collaborator. Wellbased has distributed 130 sensors throughout the city of Valencia to address energy poverty. On the other hand, Ebento is focused on enhancing energy efficiency in buildings and plans to deploy 52 sensors across two buildings in the city. These projects utilize atmospheric sensors that measure dry temperature, relative humidity, and CO2 concentration, offering insights into the environmental conditions within the participants’ homes.

“By leveraging the Helium Network, we’ve realized an astounding 98% success rate in installing sensors in low-income residences and construction sites. This allows us to continuously monitor CO2 levels, weather patterns, and other crucial data. No other technology can match this capability,” said Jose Antonio Hernández, IoT Technical Lead at Damal Redes.

“We have the technology to address an equality issue that affects many of the world’s urban centers and deprives residents of fundamental energy needs,” said Abhay Kumar, CEO of the Helium Foundation. “With Helium’s decentralized, peer-to-peer wireless network, we can gain insights that are impossible to access with a centralized system. It’s gratifying to work alongside Damal Redes and LoRa Alliance member companies to deploy on the Helium Network in Valencia, allowing for real-time environmental data that can result in meaningful change.”

The Wellbased and Ebento projects are backed by the European Union.