[fragmede]

Well, why is it so hard to get reliable access to power or water? I can think up reasons, but you've got the background to tell me why.

Are there innovations in material science and technology that make things possible today that weren't 20 years ago? I have a shower attachment to tell me the temperature of the water, and it's powered by water through the device so there are no batteries to swap. I imagine the industrial versions must be so much more advanced than a gadget I got off Amazon.

[dengxiaopeng]

Great question! One would intuit that the procurement function of a large organization (like one which operates a hydroelectric dam) would be able to see the value of some kind of industrial sensor that minimizes integration costs and provides them with better understanding of operations data, but practically it’s hard enough to coordinate folks to install conduit to route cables! When it requires political capital to get something as simple as cat-5 installed, clear efficiency gains easily fall off the table. It’s sort of like the infrastructure is “set in stone” and built to service the operations of the dam first, and everything else is secondary, as other commenters have suggested.

[harrisi]

It's probably a much simpler answer. Why set up a bunch of plumbing and networking inside a dam if you don't need it? Many (most?) were built before the internet, as well. And I don't think they generally are staffed around the clock. Any more complexity than you need is a waste of money.

[bombcar]

I bet it's exactly this. You've a massive concrete structure where adding water lines and power is going to require quite a bit of paperwork before you can even begin to consider how you run it. And they can be quite long, too, and your sensors likely need to be somewhere that power (and clean water) currently isn't.

And then you will discover just how well wifi travels through concrete whose thickness is measured in meters.