Remote Water Metering for Port Kembla's Infrastructure

Large, multi-use ports face persistent challenges in tracking utility consumption across dispersed assets and varied tenants. At Port Kembla in New South Wales, a new remote monitoring system was introduced to consolidate water usage data from heterogeneous meters, with Omniflex delivering a LoRaWAN-enabled solution that connects field data directly to the NSWPorts web portal.

Monitoring water use across a 50-kilometre port
Port Kembla extends over roughly 50 km and supports diverse activities, including fertiliser production, grain handling, wind turbine blade logistics, and automotive imports. As a tenanted port, water consumption can vary significantly between sites and over time. This variability makes manual meter reading and coarse aggregation insufficient for accurate cost attribution and environmental reporting.

To address this, remote monitoring was installed on 38 water meters distributed across the port. The system was designed to support daily consumption analysis, enabling port management to identify anomalies early and track usage at a site-specific level.

Integrating legacy and modern metering assets
A central technical challenge was the diversity of installed meters. Twelve different meter types from various manufacturers were in operation, ranging in age from several decades to newly installed units. These meters differed in measurement accuracy, data output formats, and reporting intervals.

Omniflex adapted each meter for remote data acquisition by configuring pulse outputs and validating pulse-to-volume ratios, expressed in litres per pulse. This calibration step ensured consistent, comparable data across the entire site, allowing aggregated reporting without replacing existing infrastructure.




LoRaWAN architecture and data handling
Each meter was fitted with a LoRaWAN transmitter, with a dedicated LoRaWAN gateway installed at the port’s management office. This architecture enabled low-power, long-range data transmission suitable for the port’s geographic scale. Data from both legacy and modern meters was transmitted to a central platform without the need for wired connectivity.

Data handling and visualization were managed using Omniflex’s Data2Desktop software. The platform consolidated incoming data streams, aligned readings to the correct assets, and presented consumption information in a format suitable for operational analysis and reporting. This approach ensured that managers could access relevant data without manual reconciliation.

Operational and reporting outcomes
With daily consumption data available, port management gained earlier visibility of leaks and system failures, reducing the risk of prolonged water loss. More granular data also improved internal cost tracking by linking usage to individual sites and tenants, rather than relying on estimates.

The consolidated dataset supports improved environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting by providing consistent, auditable water consumption figures across the port. According to New South Wales Ports, the availability of detailed usage data has already supported sustainability analysis, including the evaluation of potential stormwater tank installations where consumption patterns justify investment.

Practical considerations in utility monitoring projects
Beyond system design, the project highlighted practical challenges common to utility monitoring upgrades. Older meters were often heavily soiled or difficult to identify, requiring additional time to determine specifications and ensure correct integration. Addressing these issues was necessary to achieve reliable data acquisition without replacing functioning assets.

The completed deployment demonstrates how remote monitoring, combined with adaptable data integration, can extend the usable life of existing metering infrastructure while delivering the detailed consumption insight required for operational control and ESG-focused reporting in large industrial sites.

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