RO 4 million is investment value in IoT factory: Tanfeeth

Muscat: The investment value in the Internet of Things (IoT) Devices Factory project amounted to RO 4 million, the Implementation and Follow-up Support Unit Tanfeeth stated. It said the factory aims at the manufacturing of indigenous smart meters for water, electricity, and gas, and expand their use in the country. Construction work has commenced on what is billed as the first plant in the Sultanate dedicated to the manufacturing of smart meters based on Internet of Things (IoT) technology. It will be located in RusaylIndustrial City, Muscat. The project is being spearheaded by the National Energy Center (NEC), an Omani company jointly owned by public sector organisations and private investors, and well-regarded as a pioneer in the introduction of smart metering services in the Sultanate. According to Tanfeeth, in the first phase, the plant will provide 30 job opportunities for the Omanis by 2021. Efforts to build domestic smart-meter manufacturing capacity in the Sultanate come against a backdrop of an intensifying drive by various stakeholder ministries and institutions in support of IoT based connectivity. Besides enabling connected devices to communicate via the Internet, IoT is also seen important in the realisation of Smart Cities in the Sultanate, heralding the roll-out of smart transportation and driverless mobility, and enhancing energy efficiency, among other objectives envisioned by the 4th Industrial Revolution. Moreover, the importance of such a project relies on reducing the cost of using conventional meters, providing accurate data on consumption, monitoring, reducing and detecting leakages, and adjusting user consumption. In the Sultanate, a fledgling effort by some water and gas distribution utilities to introduce smart meters is rapidly gaining traction.  Smart meters not only provide timely and accurate meter readings, but they also generate warnings in the event of any leakages or outages.  More importantly, they enable customers to monitor their consumption patterns and thereby keep a tab on their monthly bills. IoT technologies have evolved dramatically over the past few years, and the number of connected IoT devices has increased from smart kitchen appliances, virtual home aids, security systems, facility management platforms, to wearable devices and others.   In this regard, Gartner, a market research firm, expects that the number of devices connected via the Internet of Things have reached 14.2 billion devices in 2019 and will reach 25 billion devices by 2021.