ES CASE STUDY · SMART IRRIGATION · SPAIN
Smart Costa del Sol: municipal smart irrigation at fleet scale
Before Urbanova Cloud brought smart irrigation to the Emirates, the technology grew up the hard way: in the ground, at municipal scale, on the Costa del Sol. This is the story of that deployment, from a single pilot to a fleet of two hundred connected irrigation controllers.
WHERE THIS COMES FROM
Real names, real numbers.
This deployment was delivered in Spain by Smart Biosystem, the smart irrigation company founded and led as CEO and CTO by Urbanova Cloud's founder. We publish it here, with its real names and numbers, as the verifiable track record behind the smart irrigation solution we offer in the UAE.
MEASURED RESULTS
The numbers, drawn.
From one valve box to a municipal fleet, 2016 to 2025
- 01Sotogrande pilot
A smart valve box installed beside the conventional one, running in parallel.
- 02Hardware programme
The device developed within a red.es backed programme with European Union funding.
- 03Municipal operations
Real customers including Aigües de Cullera, the water utility of Cullera.
- 04Fleet scale
200 actuator nodes, 30 sensor nodes, 15 weather stations and 15 flowmeters on one platform.
01
From one pilot to a municipal fleet
The system earned its scale. The first proving ground was Sotogrande, where a smart valve box was installed next to the existing one and the two approaches ran side by side. The accumulated cost comparison between conventional irrigation and the smart strategy is what convinced operators to go further.
The result was the Smart Costa del Sol milestone: two hundred actuator nodes, thirty soil-sensor nodes, fifteen weather stations and fifteen flowmeters deployed and reporting to one platform.
02
A device built for the ground, not the lab
Each unit lives inside a standard irrigation valve box. The lid integrates a solar panel that charges a super-capacitor, which removes battery replacement from the maintenance plan. Communication is cellular IoT (NB-IoT), flow is measured ultrasonically, and soil probes report moisture and temperature.
The hardware was developed within a programme backed by red.es, the Spanish public entity for digital transformation, with European Union funding. Those logos are printed on every unit in the field.
03
The platform and the measured savings
The management platform offers three irrigation strategies. A timed strategy replicates a conventional controller and saves nothing. A sensor strategy waters only when soil moisture asks for it, with savings of up to 40 percent. A water-balance strategy computes the daily irrigation dose from evapotranspiration, weather forecast, soil texture, vegetation and slope, with savings of up to 60 percent.
Both figures come from the platform's own measured consumption data across deployed sites, not from a brochure estimate. Which strategy fits each zone is an operational decision the operator makes per site.
04
Municipal customers, real operations
The system was operated with real customers, including municipal water services. The photo shows an installation for Aigües de Cullera, the water utility of Cullera, with the device going into the ground during a routine works visit.
Municipal operations are unforgiving in a useful way. Devices must survive vandalism-prone locations, irregular water pressure, staff turnover and years of weather. That is the environment this product grew up in.
05
What this means for a project in the UAE
Urbanova Cloud brings this exact experience to the Emirates: the device design lessons, the water-balance algorithm, the fleet operations habits and the honesty about what saves water and what does not.
The Gulf adds its own constraints, from extreme heat to desalinated water costs, and that is precisely where measured irrigation pays back fastest. A pilot on one or two zones, priced fixed and compared like for like, is how we recommend every operator starts.
NEXT STEP
Start with a measured pilot in the UAE.
One or two zones, a fixed price and a like-for-like comparison of water use. The practical guide explains what a pilot involves. We reply within one business day.