LoRaWAN is becoming the Industrial IoT standard of choice for Energy and Chemical companies.

LoRaWAN has tipped from pilots to mainstream network technology in refineries, chemical plants and tank storage terminals: hundreds of private networks now cover sites worldwide, thousands of IECEx‑rated sensors are on the market, and energy majors like Shell are scaling deployments in benefit of predictive maintenance and safety. With 350 million devices already connected, the open LoRaWAN standard is fast becoming the backbone of industrial IoT. Aloxy is at the forefront of this movement and many opportunities still lie ahead.

LoRaWAN moves from pilot to mainstream in the process, chemical & oil‑and‑gassectors

Massive private networks, a growing ecosystem of certified devices and new industrial use‑cases signal a tipping point for the long‑range IoT standard.

The past 18 months have seen LoRaWAN leap from proofs‑of‑concept to full‑scale production across refineries, chemical facilities and tank storage terminals worldwide.

Here's some interesting numbers we've gathered :

• 350 million end‑nodes and  6.9 million gateways are now in the field, up from 250 million just two years ago. LoRa Alliance®
• 170 mobile and satellite network operators offer LoRaWAN coverage in 162 countries, complemented by thousands of private on‑site networks. LoRa Alliance®adeunis.com
• Analyst firm Omdia predicts LPWAN connections will top 3.5 billion by 2030, with LoRaWAN leading outside China. LoRa Alliance®RCR Wireless News
• The global LoRaWAN market hit US $3.7 billion in 2024 and is set to grow  41 % CAGR through 2034. Global Market Insights Inc.

• Public reports point to 600 000  LoRaWAN base‑stations expected by 2025 and more than 400 member companies driving the open standard. wiot-group.com TEKTELIC

Why process industries are choosing LoRaWAN as their IoT backbone:

1. Intrinsically safe, battery‑powered sensors - IIoT Devices are reaching lifetimes of up to a decade in heavy industrial environments.

2. Site-wide coverage -One LoRa gateway can cover a huge portion of a refinery, slashing infrastructure cost to create datapoints drastically. Since each production site is unique, for ideal coverage a site survey can be easily conducted and typically infrastructure is limited to just a handful of gateways to support dataflow of thousands of sensors.

3. Local and Global networks  - LoRaWAN has rapidly evolved into one of the most flexible and scalable communication protocols for industrial IoT. Originally designed for wide-area, low-power applications, it’s now being adopted across a variety of operational setups — from individual production sites to multi-site networks and even global infrastructure rollouts. This flexibility allows organizations to start small and scale up continuously as operational demands grow. Despite its long-range capabilities and extensive scalability, LoRaWAN remains a highly secure infrastructure choice. With built-in end-to-end encryption, secure key management, and low operating costs, it offers a future-proof connectivity solution for industries prioritizing digital transformation to the benefit of operational efficiency and safety.

4. Rich device catalogue: thousands of certified pressure, vibration, corrosion, H₂S, temperature, power, level and valve‑position sensors mean faster project approval.

5. Low Total Cost of Ownership: Aloxy's market research confirmed valve position sensing with IIoT devices over LoRaWAN is 15-20 times cheaper compared to traditional, wired positioners. Additionally, the more sensors that are making use of the network, the more value it creates, justifying initial investments in the LoRaWAN Network infrastructure over the long term.

Aloxy’s outlook

At Aloxy,we see first-hand how LoRaWAN is moving beyond early adoption into scaled, global rollouts—particularly in the process and oil & gas industries. Two key enablers drive this momentum: once a LoRaWAN network server and data architecture are in place, expanding across sites is as simple as adding gateways, making it ideal for global operations to adopt across their operations worldwide. Secondly, the broad portfolio of IECEx-certified sensors enable customers to spread infrastructure costs over multiple use cases—from valve monitoring to equipment health. Our Aloxy Valve Position Sensor remains one of the most deployed LoRaWAN applications in the industry, tackling the persistent challenge of unmonitored manual valves—where even one misaligned valve can disrupt operations or compromise safety.

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