Performance Evaluation of LoRaWAN Based Energy Meter in Urban Area : Case Study in North Maluku

Monitoring energy consumption is a critical component of effective energy management, as it enables the identification of inefficiencies and facilitates informed decision-making to optimize resource use, particularly in digital era. In North Maluku Region, energy monitoring has been carried out utilizing technologies based on cellular technology. Coverage and high operational expenses, nevertheless, are two of the limitations of these approaches. Also, they are dependent on the cellular infrastructure that is already in place. These restrictions then prevent energy management systems from reaching their maximum potential, which is especially problematic in Urban Area settings that require effective energy management. A technology known as LoRaWAN, which stands for long-range wide area network, has emerged as a potentially useful solution for monitoring energy consumption in view of its extensive range and low power consumption. In this study, LoRaWAN-based smart energy meter is proposed to monitor the energy consumption in PT. PLN (Persero) UP3 Sofifi work areas. The field test result revealed that in North Maluku, with a single gateway operating on six Spreading Factors (SF), the smart energy meter was capable of receiving uplink packets data where the results of the experiment using SF 7 showed a packet loss value of 48.29% and the one using SF 12 showed a packet loss value of 4.17%. This study is one of the early experimental studies related to the use of LoRaWAN for smart energy meters in eastern Indonesia, as well as conveying its potential application in sustainable energy efficiency.