Hold maximum demand under a limit you set, store your rooftop solar instead of exporting it, and ride through supply failures, with one controller on your battery.
Example site: A two-shift factory on an industrial estate, with rooftop solar and a DG. What happens there
A two-shift factory on an industrial estate, with rooftop solar and a DG
The plant draws from a connection with a contracted maximum demand. Its bill has two parts that matter here: time-of-day energy rates, and a demand charge set by the highest demand the meter records in the month. That highest figure usually comes from a few minutes when several machines start together. The roof makes more than the plant uses at lunchtime, and the surplus goes out at the feed-in rate.
The demand charge is set by the limit you chose, not by the factory's worst few minutes of the month, and the roof's surplus is used on site.
A battery cuts the demand charge by supplying the short spikes that would otherwise set your monthly maximum demand, so the DISCOM meter records a lower figure. An EMS watches import against the billing block, discharges before the limit is crossed, recharges in the cheap time-of-day window and carries the plant through outages. Ingro EMS-CI does this on an HT factory connection, and runs rooftop solar and the DG in the same order of preference where the plant has them.
The plant is billed on its worst demand block of the month, at a penal rate on the excess if it ever crosses contract demand, and every shift that runs into the evening ToD peak buys its units at the dearest rate. Outages and voltage dips stop lines mid-batch, and the next machine or chiller cannot go in because the sanctioned load is already full. On weekly offs the roof's surplus goes out at the export rate, and the DG still starts for every short cut. The owner wants all of this fixed without a load-enhancement application or a bigger diesel set.
Written for
Owners, plant heads, electrical maintenance heads and finance teams at factories and warehouses on an HT connection, with or without rooftop solar and a DG
What it costs you today
A compressor cutting in during a furnace start, once, fixes the demand charge for the whole billing month. Nobody sees it happen; it arrives on the bill weeks later.
Many tariffs bill the higher of recorded demand or a set share of contract demand, so shaving below that floor saves nothing until the contract itself is reduced, and the DISCOM wants dated evidence before it agrees.
The next line or chiller needs a sanctioned-load enhancement, which can mean new cable, metering or transformer work at the consumer's cost, on a DISCOM timeline the plant does not control.
Sub-second dips trip drives and reset PLCs far more often than full outages do, but almost nobody logs them, so they are never costed and never fixed.
Ingro EMS-CI is an energy management system for battery storage at factories and warehouses. It runs the battery against the tariff and a set demand limit and carries the plant through supply failures, and where the site has rooftop solar or a diesel generator it runs them in the same order of preference.
The controller holds billed maximum demand below a limit you configure, charges the battery in low-tariff windows and discharges it in peak windows. Rooftop solar, if the plant has it, serves the load first and its surplus goes into the battery rather than out at the feed-in rate. When the supply fails the plant moves to the battery without interruption, and a generator, if there is one, starts only when the outage outlasts it.
Ingro EMS is a made-in-India energy management system, designed, built and supported in India. It is supplied to BESS integrators, EPC contractors and developers to go inside the battery systems they build, and to replace a locked or underperforming controller on an existing one. Or Ingro delivers the whole system, from sizing to O&M.
A factory with no solar and no generator, and one with both, run the same controller. Solar and the DG are settings on this package, not different products.
Ingro EMS-CI reads every meter and talks to the systems that make, store, use and switch energy on the site, then runs them to one plan on every control cycle. The battery is one of the things it controls.
A factory's bill is set by its highest demand, and that is usually a few short peaks. EMS-CI meters the import continuously and lets the battery take whatever would cross the limit you set. Where the plant has rooftop solar, the battery stores its surplus too.
A working day
Illustrative. Not measured data.
The battery charges in the low-tariff window, supplies the short peaks that would cross the limit, and discharges through the peak window. The supply never registers above the limit.
The same day with no battery. A handful of short peaks cross the limit, and the highest of them sets the demand charge for the month.
Solar serves the plant first. Any surplus fills the battery rather than going out at the feed-in rate, and the stored energy is spent holding demand down through the evening peak.
When the supply fails, the plant transfers to the battery without interruption. When it returns, a stability hold precedes the controlled hand-back.
Demand held below a configured limit, so billed maximum demand never registers above it and short peaks above the sanctioned load come from the battery.
Charged in low-tariff windows and discharged in peak windows, configured to your tariff structure.
Rooftop solar used in the plant first, with its surplus stored rather than exported at the feed-in rate.
Seamless transfer to battery on supply failure; a DG, if fitted, starts only when the outage outlasts the battery.
Each lever EMS-CI pulls lands somewhere you can check, on a bill line, in a log or in a monthly report. No figure here is a promise: the application book works them in your own tariff and duty.
The demand charge is set by the highest billed block in the month. The battery covers the spikes, so that block is lower however much energy the plant uses.
Where you see itRecorded maximum demand on each DISCOM bill against the configured limit, with every approach to the limit logged with what the battery did.
Once a full billing year shows demand never approached the old figure, the contract can be revised downward, which lowers the fixed part of the bill for good rather than for one month.
Where you see itThe dated demand record exported from the historian for the revision application, then the revised contract demand printed on later bills.
Energy for the evening peak comes from the cheaper ToD window or from the roof's midday surplus, released when the rate is highest, and only when the spread beats losses and what the cycle costs the battery.
Where you see itThe ToD-wise consumption split and export reading on the bill, with the arbitrage and solar-shifting streams shown separately in the savings report.
The battery supplies short peaks above the sanctioned limit, so new load runs on the existing connection instead of waiting for, and paying for, an enhancement.
Where you see itImport held under the sanctioned figure in the demand log, set against the enhancement quote the plant did not need to accept.
Owner / MD
Whether the battery beats the load-enhancement quote or a bigger DG, and pays back on our own bills.
CFO / Finance
Savings reconciled to the DISCOM bill and split by stream, with degradation, O&M and financing in the model.
Plant head / Production
No machine ever stopped to hold the demand limit, and lines carried through outages and dips.
Electrical maintenance head
Fits our HT panel, meters and protection; clear alarms; inspector approvals; who answers the phone at night.
Put these to every supplier on the shortlist, us included. A supplier that can't answer one in writing is telling you something.
These are the lines that end up in the specification for EMS-CI. Ask every supplier to answer each one in writing. Read the common questions.
If the controller averages differently from the billing meter, it can sit comfortably under the limit while the meter records a new monthly peak.
A battery emptied on ToD arbitrage at the start of the evening peak cannot defend the demand limit fifteen minutes later, and one missed block sets the month.
A controller that cycles on every spread spends warranted throughput for little or nothing and brings capacity fade forward.
No-break changeover is set by the changeover gear, not the software, and an open-transition switch still drops drives and PLCs.
Finance will not accept a saving it cannot tie back to the bill, and shared-savings or storage-as-a-service contracts are settled on that figure.
An unfamiliar model turns commissioning into weeks of register mapping or a forced swap, and a DG controller without a load setpoint saves run hours but not fuel per hour.
15 questions
The EMS meters the site's import continuously and discharges the battery whenever load approaches the demand ceiling you have configured, so the recorded maximum demand never registers above that figure. The charge levied against contracted capacity is then set by the ceiling you chose, not by the site's worst fifteen minutes of the month.
No. The battery and the supply are the core of the package. Rooftop solar and a diesel generator are options on the same controller: if the plant has them they are run in the same order of preference, and if it does not, nothing else changes.
Usually not. The platform is manufacturer-independent and integrates over Modbus TCP/RTU, SunSpec and comparable interfaces; inverters that accept a remote active-power limit qualify, which covers effectively all current models. Compatibility is confirmed against your equipment list during discovery.
Yes. It is configured for time-of-day windows and for contracted maximum demand in kW or kVA, which are set during discovery and commissioning rather than fixed in the software.
Yes. Ingro EMS is supplied to BESS integrators, EPC contractors and developers to go inside the battery system they build, or to replace a locked or underperforming controller on an existing one.
It can, if the controller ignores the warranty. Ingro EMS carries the cycle cost, the throughput budget and the state-of-charge window as settings, takes a cycle only when the spread beats what it costs the battery, and reports state of health against the guarantee. That needs a BMS that reports health and cumulative throughput, which goes into the equipment schedule before anything is ordered.
Safety sits mainly with the battery system: cell chemistry, BMS, enclosure, detection and suppression, and a location the electrical inspector and fire authority accept. The EMS's part is to apply the BMS limits on every control cycle, log every alarm and command, and stop the battery when it must. Ask for the battery's test and certification documents alongside the quote.
Usually not; the engine stays and what matters is its controller. With remote start and stop the battery can take the short outages; to keep the engine properly loaded on long ones the controller must accept a load setpoint, which on an existing engine is usually a controller upgrade rather than a new set. We confirm it from the make and model during discovery.
Yes. EMS-CI supplies short peaks above the sanctioned limit from the battery rather than from the grid, so additional plant can run on the existing connection without applying for a sanctioned-load enhancement.
Because the two are priced differently. Exported units are settled at the feed-in or net-metering rate, while a unit held in storage and used during the evening peak displaces a unit you would otherwise have bought at the peak tariff. EMS-CI directs surplus to storage in preference to export whenever that comparison favours storing it.
Yes, with the EMS in charge. Left to themselves, solar inverters can push a lightly loaded generator below its minimum load or into reverse power, so many sites switch the solar off whenever the engine runs. EMS-CI limits solar output so the generator stays above its minimum loading and sends any surplus to the battery.
A stability hold precedes resynchronisation. The load is then transferred back automatically or on operator confirmation, according to the reconnection policy you configure.
An MD controller holds the limit by tripping loads, which means stopping compressors, furnaces or lines at the moment production wants them. A battery supplies the excess instead, so the limit is held and nothing stops. The battery also does the jobs an MD controller cannot: ToD shifting and carrying the plant through outages.
ToD windows, rates and contract demand are configuration, not code, so a revised tariff order is a settings change on site. The business case is a separate matter: build it on the demand charge and capacity benefits as well as the ToD spread, and re-check it against each new order rather than one year's rates.
The export rule is configured for the site rather than built into the product, so a move from net to gross metering, net billing or zero export changes the order surplus follows, not the hardware. The battery's other jobs, holding the demand limit and serving the evening peak, do not depend on export rules at all.
Still have a question?
Send us your site, hardware and tariff or tender, and an engineer will answer it.
Go deeper
How C&I sites choose and buy an EMS.
Sizing, equipment, EMS, installation and O&M from one team.
Add a battery and a controller to the solar or DG you already own.
Putting Ingro EMS inside the battery you build.
The controller is half of it. The other half is the engineering that puts it on your site and keeps it right afterwards. Both are quoted as one item.
The product
1. The controller
Wired, configured and commissioned against your plant, and installed in the plant room. It is the component that operates the site.
2. The operator console
A single-line representation of the actual plant with live power on every feeder, the state of each source, the alarm register, and the endurance available at the load currently being carried.
3. The mobile view
Read-only, for management rather than operations: whether the site is sound, what it has saved, what has occurred and what is scheduled.
4. Reporting and training
The reporting suite, generated and distributed automatically, and instruction for the personnel who will operate the plant.
The service
The platform in full: specifications, the thirteen reports and implementation
Nothing bought yet? Better still: we write the equipment schedule so EMS-CI gets the data it needs from day one.
Missing one? It goes into the equipment schedule before anything is ordered, not discovered at commissioning.
Send us the items in what to send. We return a scope of supply, an equipment schedule and an indicative programme for EMS-CI, written against the outcomes you set.