Episode 35
Go Figure It Out - Dr. Simon Bunjamin
Dr. Simon Bunjamin, Project Manager for LoRaWAN and Smart City initiatives at NEW (Niederrhein Energie und Wasser GmbH) AG, talks about how a traditional public utility in western Germany transformed itself into a digital innovator by embracing LoRaWAN. He explains how the journey began with a single project and evolved into one of the most advanced regional LoRaWAN networks serving hundreds of thousands of customers.
Shares how he moved from a background in political science into the world of IoT and smart utilities
Describes starting at NEW as a one-person team tasked with exploring LoRaWAN use cases across electricity, gas, and water divisions
Explains how early skepticism turned into enthusiasm once colleagues experienced LoRaWAN’s simplicity and reliability firsthand
Details the creation of an internal “experience center” to demonstrate live sensors and educate staff across departments
Tells the story of solving a seemingly minor problem—rain leaking through office windows—that sparked a wave of new IoT projects
Breaks down how LoRaWAN reshaped utility operations by replacing costly, limited systems with flexible, data-rich solutions
Discusses the unexpected benefits of real-time metering data, from billing accuracy to optimizing heat and energy performance
Shares the now-famous “beaver project,” where LoRaWAN sensors replaced manual water level checks and paid for themselves in days
Highlights lessons on building internal buy-in, navigating data governance, and balancing regulation with innovation
Reflects on how curiosity, communication, and small wins can drive large-scale transformation within public infrastructure organizations
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-simon-bunjamin-b84a7419/
Company Website: https://www.new-energie.de/gk/service-fuer-stadtwerke/lorawan
Transcript
Today's guest on Meteos Scientific's The Business of Lorwan is Dr. Simon Bunjamin,
Speaker:project manager for Lorwan and Smart City Projects at Niederrhein Energie und Wasser AG,
Speaker:a major public utility in Western Germany. Simon didn't start in tech, his PhD is in political
Speaker:science, but he somehow ended up building one of the most advanced Lorwan networks in the region.
Speaker:In this episode, he shares how a single small problem inside a utility sparked a full
Speaker:digital transformation, what happened when nobody believed Lorwan could work,
Speaker:and how a story involving rain, windows, and even a few beavers changed everything.
Speaker:This episode is sponsored by the Helium Foundation and is dedicated to spreading
Speaker:knowledge about Lorwan. If you'd like to learn more about the publicly available
Speaker:global Lorwan they run, visit helium.foundation. Now, let's dig into the conversation with Dr.
Speaker:Simon Bungemann. Simon, thanks so much for coming on the show. I'm excited to have you here.
Speaker:Well, thanks for inviting me. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. It's once again due to Robert Boggs that you're coming on, so big shout out to Robert.
Speaker:Let's get started.
Speaker:Let's kick it off a little bit with an intro about how you're not natively a Lorwan nerd and
Speaker:how you came into this thing. Yeah, thanks. That is indeed a funny story. It wasn't planned,
Speaker:but it happened anyway, and often these stories are the best. So by trade, I'm
Speaker:graduated in education and in political science. I wrote my first thesis about the moral code
Speaker:development amongst youths and the second thesis about the use of non-military force
Speaker:in crisis regions. And nothing of this has slightly anything to do with Lorwan at all.
Speaker:However, I ended up in that space and I feel quite comfortable there. And whenever I introduce
Speaker:Lorwan to others, I always tell them my background and the story and let them know
Speaker:that whatever your background is, I managed to handle Lorwan quite well, and you will do that too.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And I think I saw that Indonesian is listed as one of the languages,
Speaker:at least that you've heard before, if not speak fluent.
Speaker:That's correct.
Speaker:Oh, I mean, we can switch a little bit to Indonesian as well to broaden the audience,
Speaker:but it would be thin ice on my side as well.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe we'll have AI translate it for us.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:Okay. So you get this education in economics, education, and political science, and then you
Speaker:find Lorwan. And really LPWNs in general. Let's talk about what you're doing now. Give me some
Speaker:of the kind of exciting things that you're doing right now with Niteran.
Speaker:So at first I started as a consultant.
Speaker:I started with a startup in Düsseldorf. First customers and client were public utilities and
Speaker:Lorwan. That was the first time I really got my hands onto Lorwan. And roughly a year and a half
Speaker:later, I switched sites basically and got a position at a NEW that is a public utilities
Speaker:company here in the lower Niteran region. The lower Niteran region here is located in the
Speaker:western part of Germany.
Speaker:The borders of Netherlands, home of around a million people, I think, plus or minus. And we
Speaker:are a very traditional public utilities company. We serve around 400,000 households with electricity,
Speaker:150,000 with gas, another 100,000 with water. And that's basically what we do, a semi-public owned.
Speaker:So we are sitting in a very traditional space. Our operators of critical infrastructure. So
Speaker:we are really used to a very tight set of rules, regulations and processes. However, at the same
Speaker:time, we strive to become a digital innovator and want to pick up trends to make life for customers
Speaker:easier and speed up, of course, internal processes. So it's a little bit of a, I wouldn't say conflict
Speaker:of interest, but you can tell that just by nature, by default of the situation, there are some
Speaker:obstacles on the way to digitalization.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So, okay.
Speaker:So you've got this conventional site.
Speaker:Where it's just a standard public utility. And then you've got what sounds like a dream job for
Speaker:a LoRaWAN person, which is not only are you building out the network and making sure there's
Speaker:coverage, but you're also saying, Hey, let's go find some use cases and actually deploy these
Speaker:things and put them into use. Can you talk me through how that started? Because I can imagine
Speaker:that when you got there, they were just like, Hey, we're crushing with LoRaWAN. All we need you to do
Speaker:is to manage it. Like, what did that look like when you got there?
Speaker:Oh, that's indeed a really interesting start. Roughly four and a half years ago,
Speaker:and yeah, pretty much started with zero as a one man show, as given a project, explore LoRaWAN and
Speaker:use cases for, for the company across all business verticals and make it fly. So I said, yes, awesome.
Speaker:I know LoRaWAN by now. I know the potential and what it can do, how to run it. And that's the
Speaker:perfect space to be. Let's do it. So with a full, a full set of enthusiasm, I started to build up a
Speaker:like a experience center first, just with a one office floor and equip the entire thing with
Speaker:whatever the market had to offer the outdoor and window sensors, CO2, the heating thermostat,
Speaker:people counter, desk occupancy, and whatever there was just to say, okay, this is LoRaWAN.
Speaker:This is what it looks like. And this is how it works. But my aim was to really give people the
Speaker:opportunity to interact with sensors, with hardwares, and with other things. And that's
Speaker:how I got to where I am now. And that's how I got to where I am now. And that's how I got to where I
Speaker:am now. And that's how I got to where I am now. And that's how I got to where I am now. And that's how
Speaker:I got to where I am now. And that's how I got to where I am now. And that's how I got to where I am
Speaker:now. And that's how I got to where I am now. And that's how I got to where I am now. And see how
Speaker:the sensor really reacts, what kind of data it delivers to just show them how easy it can be
Speaker:and what you can do with it. So first step setting up the experience center, put everything in
Speaker:second step, bring the people in to really experience it. And that was the
Speaker:tougher challenge. So knocked it roughly thousand dollars over the next month
Speaker:to introduce myself as a new employee with new project saying, well, this is LoRaWAN. Have you
Speaker:ever heard of it? Want to convince you how really great it is. And the response was pretty similar,
Speaker:the same kind of resistance and like, never heard of it. Or I've heard about it once,
Speaker:roughly five years ago. And at that time, realized that's not our thing and we never
Speaker:touched it again. So leave us alone. No time. It's not my decision or what we already have
Speaker:another system in place or not too sure about it. Don't want to make that decision. Don't
Speaker:have the money. So it was different kind of no's in all varieties from different people,
Speaker:different departments, different backgrounds. And to be honest, that was frustrating. That wasn't
Speaker:the kind of fun I was looking for. And basically almost no yeses. Tough start the first six months,
Speaker:but I think the breakthrough was a pretty much more or less a coincidence. So I think that was
Speaker:a early alternate time, similar like now to be fair.
Speaker:When I came across a notification in our intranet from facility management,
Speaker:it was raining heavily over the weekend and somebody must have forgotten to close the window.
Speaker:So facility management said, well, to whoever forgot to close the window, please next time,
Speaker:take more care because there was water coming in, causing some damage and it wasn't great for them.
Speaker:So I said, hold on. That sounds familiar. I think there's a solution to that. So
Speaker:called the head of facility and said,
Speaker:literally, so happy to hear about your problem because I can solve it.
Speaker:And they're like, yeah, okay. Yes, it was a problem. Really took a bit of time to fix it.
Speaker:But you know, it's more or less a one time thing. Doesn't happen too often. So I don't think that we
Speaker:really need permanent solutions. Okay. Understand. But how much did that cost to fix it? How much
Speaker:time and effort? Yeah, quite a bit. And how often does it really happen? Yeah, from time to time.
Speaker:Not always when it rains, but...
Speaker:It's quite common that people leave a window open. So I said, that's fine. Let me take care of that.
Speaker:You don't have to do anything. I do everything from A to Z. I take the sensors, I install them,
Speaker:I integrate them, I give a dashboard and set up an automatic alarm. So you can just take a breather
Speaker:whenever it starts to rain, because if there's a window open, you'll get a notification and
Speaker:somebody in the building will have the chance to close the window. Yeah. Okay. So that made sense
Speaker:because... Yeah, okay. So that made sense because... Yeah, okay. So that made sense because...
Speaker:There was a real problem with some damage behind it and just some extra efforts. And so I said,
Speaker:okay, well let's have a look at it. So a little bit more back and forth about technology, GDPR and
Speaker:the IT interfaces. He sent a Technical Maintenance Engineer over, to the experience center. First
Speaker:visitor, first real visitor. And his mind was blown. He was like, taking the first sense of that. Okay. So,
Speaker:that's just the sensor you just put it there and that's it that's how it works battery no cabling
Speaker:and then there's this and there's that and he said are you kidding me how can it be that easy and
Speaker:that cheap yeah so in his world you do a lot of cabling you have external service providers
Speaker:external systems lots of efforts to solve a problem and then i realized that it is actually
Speaker:true when people say no we don't want to have this solution they always have their current
Speaker:environment in mind they know how much things cost how much time it takes to organize to install
Speaker:but laurel is so completely different and that was the case where i thought okay he understands
Speaker:exactly what i'm talking about because he knows this challenge is that's his daily business so
Speaker:we played a little bit with the sensor
Speaker:testing where to put it how to put it and even though it really solves a problem in the end
Speaker:we never used that sensor for this application just because we couldn't figure out to install
Speaker:the sensor in a way that when the window is half open to let us know window is half open but not
Speaker:that open so it can rain into the room and then i said ah well that's actually too bad that is
Speaker:the last thing that we really need for a sensor like this otherwise it doesn't make
Speaker:enough sense okay too bad but we did a lot of other use cases together with him and his team
Speaker:leakage sensors climate sensors a whole set of energy management system and anything else so
Speaker:even though we never came to using that window sensor everything else was an immediate hit
Speaker:and it was really great to see how things develop once he understood and son really
Speaker:experienced how easy it is his mind completely changed because that was a completely different
Speaker:world and he immediately knew i can install the sensor i know how to activate it and this is the
Speaker:result i get for that price that was a win-win-win situation that's that's pretty awesome i'm
Speaker:imagining that you know we get a lot of engineers listening to this you'll get a bunch of emails or
Speaker:linkedin messages after this saying well check out this sensor this window sensor is exactly what
Speaker:you're looking for so maybe you'll
Speaker:eventually get to solve that problem hopefully was there anything else that you put in that did
Speaker:work that you were super psyched on i think so that was really the probably the most fun way to
Speaker:implement lower one because when you show and demonstrate something and you can see that
Speaker:somebody understand and then it makes click in their mind and say yes i know what you mean
Speaker:and then the mind starts to think and say okay there's something else on something else
Speaker:that was a of course you have to have a
Speaker:little bit of luck to find exactly that person who knows and understands and has that curiosity
Speaker:to to try new things another way that worked quite well for us was uh laura van as a business case
Speaker:and as a public utilities company one of our core businesses is to really remotely read and
Speaker:control readers for billing purposes so we already did that before starting with laura van with a
Speaker:system provided by
Speaker:the manufacturer of the meters and uh for each meter you had to have an additional gateway and
Speaker:a router for every 20 devices so it was a lot of efforts to install the devices you had to purchase
Speaker:them you have to operate them but it worked for getting a one set of data once a month
Speaker:and that is when we challenged the system with a lower one for very obvious reasons because
Speaker:it is gives us much more flexibility
Speaker:and delivered more data so that was a yeah the approach was to define the cost for the current
Speaker:system and see what lower one can deliver technically and at what cost so technically
Speaker:very clear case there was no need for additional gateways no need for for additional routers but
Speaker:the meter as such was per piece a little bit more expensive than the previous one but then
Speaker:the amount of data we received was so much more
Speaker:expensive for the previous system we received data once a month sufficient for billing but with
Speaker:loravan four times a day and that was something we said okay what are we supposed to do with all the
Speaker:data so business case very clear lower invest more flexibility because we could run different devices
Speaker:on the same lower one gateway in contrast to the system for that one device only but then data were
Speaker:coming so much more data so at first the bidding department said okay four times the data but then
Speaker:we're providing ourselves with more data within the system just as much more so we decided to use this
Speaker:four times per day that is so much more than we'll ever need just give me one data set once a month
Speaker:and the rest i don't care so i said well okay well let's save the data and see what else we can
Speaker:do with it so in the end again knocking a couple of doors going around with the data set and say
Speaker:well now we have meters and we not only have the the volume at the end of the month we have it
Speaker:every day we have backward forward temperatures we have error status and that's why people said
Speaker:oh hold on you get an error status of a device that's interesting let's have a look at it so
Speaker:obviously the the device is always in the error status with a detailed error message if there's
Speaker:an error and what was even more interesting for us was the and still is the forward and
Speaker:backward temperature so with that we can see whether we pump enough heat into the system
Speaker:and we can see whether we pump enough heat into the system and we can see whether we pump enough
Speaker:heat into the system and whether the the pressure and the configuration of the heating system is
Speaker:correct and that gives us insights that we've never thought about so when we installed the
Speaker:meters the purpose was really billing billing billing billing billing and now it's billing
Speaker:plus heat control plus optimization of the internal system and now the question is not
Speaker:can we do that with lower one the question always is let's do that with lower one or why
Speaker:haven't we done it with lower one yet so that is big change driven by money obviously but also by
Speaker:operational efficiencies and a whole new opportunity to drive a data generated business
Speaker:models and operations i was really convincing and still is yeah no that that makes a ton of
Speaker:sense i remember talking to michael angeloff i want to say in bulgarian he was working with
Speaker:the water meters there he's actually telling me that the
Speaker:water companies there don't care so much about the loss of water because they bill the customer
Speaker:for it anyway but they care about the energy to pump the water because they have to pay for that
Speaker:no matter what so it's sounds like you probably have similar problem sets so this utility thing
Speaker:is super straightforward you're doing some other stuff as well i saw something about
Speaker:managing biodiversity and beavers and water levels and bus spaces tell me what else that
Speaker:you're getting your yeah your laura and fingers into i think that is really the beauty of lower
Speaker:one yeah it's so versatile it's so versatile it's so versatile it's so versatile it's so versatile
Speaker:versatile and so yeah unique in its own applications and we started with the
Speaker:sub metering division as well to read the meters but since we already built the nova network
Speaker:it is infrastructure that everybody can use for more or less free because it's there and
Speaker:once you have the infrastructure set yeah it is so easy to just add another sensor here a
Speaker:couple of sensors there to create another use case which otherwise would have been
Speaker:too complicated too costly and then people started to come and say well okay we've heard
Speaker:about your sensors we've heard about the leakage sensor do you have something like this do you have
Speaker:something like that and one of my most favorite stories is really about the beaver and that's a
Speaker:one reminder of that oh nice of that uh get a little stuff in this case it's uh yes it's it's
Speaker:the lucky beaver always sitting uh next day to my laptop and um that was a
Speaker:colleague of mine is responsible for overseeing the water quality and water levels in in open
Speaker:waters and it just happened that the beaver returned back to its natural habitat the beaver
Speaker:here is under natural protection so it's a very special case you are not allowed to hunt the beaver
Speaker:you're not allowed to enter the beaver area and and beavers as you know they love to build dams
Speaker:they take wood from anywhere put it wherever they want to
Speaker:and it happened that one of the beavers started to build a dam right in front of the canalization
Speaker:blocking the water from coming into the canalization so once they realized that
Speaker:this is a severe issue they had to send out two people three times a day to go to that
Speaker:certain place stand on a bridge take binoculars have a look at the water level write it down on
Speaker:paper drive back to the office put it into the system and come back two days later so that is
Speaker:of uh it was an effort of two to three hours per day so three times per week must have been fun for
Speaker:the employees like hey go look for these beavers have a good time guys exactly it's like okay well
Speaker:we're on the way again see you later and don't forget to bring lunch exactly whatever weather
Speaker:conditions were yeah so there was no choice they really had to do that and the solution was really
Speaker:just to use a very simple distance level sensor and just put it on the bridge and then measure
Speaker:the water level that sensor cost at that time 250 euro return on an investment was there in less
Speaker:than two days then again you have so much more data yeah you have data every hour you can exactly
Speaker:tell when you have a critical level when you have to go and make sure that the water is flowing from
Speaker:the beaver dam into the canalization again and you also know when it was just rain and not the beaver
Speaker:yes so if you combine it with weather weather data you can see okay it's been raining and water level
Speaker:then you can clearly tell that probably was not the beaver it was just rain so no need to go out
Speaker:and that's again very simple case and that's something you just cannot come up with i would
Speaker:never ever thought about knocking at people's store and ask what hey do you know about the beaver is it
Speaker:a problem for you do you have a beaver problem exactly yeah at that time i didn't even know that
Speaker:we had a beaver to be fair so that's yeah another very funny and lucky coincidence that is a good
Speaker:story to tell
Speaker:it's super cool that you've got this good sized lorawan network now this podcast of course is
Speaker:sponsored by helium which has a global lorawan it sounds like you guys have plenty of coverage
Speaker:do you ever use other or think about using other lorawans to say hey let's see if we can fill in
Speaker:some gaps or are the requirements such that you can't use outside stuff without whatever a full
Speaker:investigation into it yeah so at first we thought about using a the public lorawan net just to
Speaker:reduce our initial invest but since we
Speaker:use lorawan now for billing purposes the internal requirements are unfortunately very different
Speaker:so we had to build our own independent private closed network just to make sure that the data
Speaker:that we receive are handed according to current data regulations so we can open up the network to
Speaker:to partners but not to the public so to say that's again then we are sitting in a very
Speaker:traditional space highly regulated sure and yeah that's the boundary
Speaker:interesting i guess the last question that came up as we were talking is ai is is everywhere that
Speaker:i look do you think that there will be a place for these public utilities to say and i'm sure
Speaker:there's some privacy concerns with this but say hey let's put an ai program in a place that reads
Speaker:everybody's emails and inter company communications and sees where they can use lorawan and then
Speaker:initiates a conversation or do you think like god that'll that'll never happen that's far too
Speaker:invasive
Speaker:i would appreciate it it would be big help but i'd say less fun in a way yeah i think it really
Speaker:isn't that all about the communication yeah you have to not only actively tell people about the
Speaker:projects you do you also have to listen to people to their problems their operational routines and
Speaker:sometimes people after years of doing the same thing every week every month they don't often
Speaker:realize a problem as a problem anymore it's just
Speaker:that's the way they've done it there's no alternative so let's do that again let's do
Speaker:the round let's read this one let's open the door to check so it really takes a lot of uh yeah
Speaker:curiosity i'd say and openness to just to figure out and see how people are running their business
Speaker:what they really have to do what are nice to has what are your core functionalities and obviously
Speaker:you cannot solve every problem with a lower one but building up the network and having the ability
Speaker:to do whatever we want to gives us the flexibility to just test things just offer things just if it's
Speaker:only just one or two sensors if that already helps it can make a big difference that's already a win
Speaker:love it yeah no it does it does seem obvious that it's such a such a useful thing for public
Speaker:utilities do you have any idea or could you share sorry to put you on the spot here the amount of
Speaker:savings that has happened since you started implementing lower one is that something that
Speaker:you can present and say hey we've saved ten thousand euro this year
Speaker:yeah that is difficult to assess because uh we have savings across very different functions
Speaker:so at the of course it's easy to say well switching from the current from the previous
Speaker:system to the current system save us this much in invest this much of our safe by not installing
Speaker:additional gateways and routers but then we haven't factored in the value we are creating
Speaker:with the additional data that we receive and we don't really factor
Speaker:in the money that we save on not spending on external systems so it is a very broader variety
Speaker:of different pockets that you are saving money from or taking money out for others and in the end
Speaker:you create your qualitative values quantitative values and you often comply with new regulations
Speaker:using lower one and that is something that is there's no money behind it that's something you
Speaker:have to do no matter what and with lower one
Speaker:we are able to yeah comply with regulations in a very convenient and affordable way
Speaker:yeah it must be such a big win well it sounds like like you got a super fun job i'm sure there's days
Speaker:where you're like ah this is a tough one but it sounds like most time it's pretty good simon thanks
Speaker:so much for making the time to come on really appreciate you uh sharing what you're doing in
Speaker:western germany with us thanks for having me nick really it was a pleasure good fun
Speaker:that's it for this episode of the business of lorewen i built this for you the one person
Speaker:in about a hundred thousand who actually has an interest in how this tiny little slice of the
Speaker:world works of course this isn't just about you and me it's about everyone in lorewen and how we
Speaker:can work together to make an exceptional thing lorewen is a dispersed community with little
Speaker:pockets of knowledge all around the world and most of them don't talk to each other as much
Speaker:as i'd like so the first and best thing we can do to make this show better is to get more guests on
Speaker:who i don't even know exist i want to talk to strangers strangers who are your friends please
Speaker:me to the most rad lorewen air you know or point them my way or help reach out and give me a name
Speaker:when it comes to running down lorewen guests i can track a falcon on a cloudy day
Speaker:if you can remember metsci.show you can find me that's m-e-t-s-c-i dot s-h-o-w
Speaker:metsci.show okay so sharing knowledge by getting great guests on is the first and by far the most
Speaker:important thing we can do to make this better the next best thing for the show to do is the usual
Speaker:stuff subscribe to the show give it a review share it in your corner of the world again
Speaker:that's metsci.show finally if you want to support the show financially you can do that over at
Speaker:support.metsci.show you'll see options there for one-time donations if you really like this show
Speaker:as well as an ongoing subscription option if you think this show is worth supporting for the long
Speaker:term if you want to try lorewen for yourself sign up for a medio scientific account at
Speaker:console.medioscientific.com and get your first 400 data credits for
Speaker:free that's enough to run a sensor for about a year if you're firing every hour
Speaker:this show is supported by a grant from the helium foundation and produced by gristle king inc
Speaker:i'm nick hawks i'll see you on the next show
