Run solar, storage, the generator and the utility (if there is one) as a single plant, resolved on every control cycle.
Example site: A remote settlement, mine, plantation or resort on a weak grid, or none. What happens there
A remote settlement, mine, plantation or resort on a weak grid, or none
The utility supply is unreliable, is being withdrawn, or was never connected. Diesel has been carrying the site.
One plant, one order of preference, and one cost per unit with diesel included.
A microgrid controller runs solar, battery, diesel generator and any grid supply as one plant. Solar carries the day, the battery forms the site's own grid and carries the evening and every outage, and the generator starts only when stored energy runs short, properly loaded and recharging the battery so it stops sooner. Ingro EMS-MG does this and reports one cost per unit, diesel included.
The site runs on diesel because the grid never arrived, arrives for a few hours a day, or fails when it is needed most. Solar is already on the roof, or being offered, but it shuts down with the grid and the generator still runs through the night. They want the process, the pumps, the cold store or the guest rooms to stay up, and the fuel bill and the fuel trucking to shrink.
Written for
Owners, site heads, electrical and finance teams at mines, plantations, resorts, telecom hubs, campuses and remote camps where grid supply is weak or absent
What it costs you today
A grid-tied array trips on anti-islanding protection the moment supply is lost, so the generator carries the site even on a bright afternoon. The panels the owner paid for do nothing during the outages that prompted the purchase.
Sized for the worst day, the engine spends most of its hours at light load, burning more fuel per unit and wet-stacking. A basic DG-PV synchroniser protects it only by holding the solar back.
Fuel is trucked in, stored and issued at a remote site, and purchases rarely reconcile with engine hours or units generated. Nobody can say what a unit actually costs the site.
When supply runs short the whole site trips, or someone walks round pulling breakers, because there is no agreed order for what drops first. Critical and non-critical loads fall together.
Ingro EMS-MG is a microgrid energy management system for off-grid and weak-grid sites. It forms and holds the site's own grid, operating solar generation, battery storage, standby generation and the utility supply as one plant against a single, configurable order of preference.
On every control cycle the controller reads the plant, resolves the least-cost compliant means of carrying the present load, issues a setpoint to each source and records the decision with its reason. Solar is consumed first, storage covers the hours that cost most and answers every interruption, the utility supply carries the balance within its demand ceiling, and standby generation is engaged only when demand exceeds what storage can deliver.
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.
This is the fullest configuration we build. Every other product in the line is this one with something taken out.
Ingro EMS-MG 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.
On every control cycle EMS-MG reads the plant and resolves the cheapest compliant way to carry the present load: solar first, storage for the costliest hours, the utility within its ceiling, and the generator last.
Utility connected
Illustrative. Not measured data.
Solar carries the day and fills the battery. The battery takes the evening peak, the utility carries the balance within its ceiling, and the generator is engaged only if demand exceeds what storage can deliver.
With no utility behind it, storage forms the site's own grid and the array generates against it. The generator is held in reserve for the hours storage cannot cover, and recharges the battery while it runs.
Solar and battery carry the base operation, with the generator held as reserve.
The full site supported with no utility supply — continuous operation, not short-term ride-through.
Load shedding in a defined priority order, applied only to circuits you nominate.
A single cost-per-unit figure for the site, reported monthly with diesel included.
Each lever EMS-MG 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.
Solar and storage carry hours the engine used to run. When it does run it is held in its efficient loading band and its surplus refills the battery, so each run is shorter and each hour burns less.
Where you see itGenerator operations and fuel report: run hours, starts, loading and litres per run, set against fuel purchase records.
The battery becomes the site's voltage and frequency reference, so the array keeps generating against it during an outage instead of tripping. Daytime events need the engine far less often.
Where you see itSupply reliability and islanding report: each event, its duration, and which source carried the site through it.
Under deficit, nominated circuits shed in a set order and come back in a set order, so the process, cold chain or communications stay up while lower-priority loads wait.
Where you see itEvent and command record: every shed and restore, with its time and the reason the controller gave.
Fuel price, solar, battery losses and any grid import go into one cost per unit, so the next decision (more panels, more storage, a smaller genset) is made on the site's own data.
Where you see itMonthly executive summary and energy ledger, closed each day from cumulative meter counters, the same arithmetic as a utility bill.
Site / plant head
Production, pumps, communications or guests that never stop, fewer night call-outs, and a system local staff can operate.
Electrical / maintenance head
Genset protection left with its own controller, changeover gear specified properly, every device integrated openly, no black box.
CFO / Finance
Cost per unit including diesel, before and after, from metered data; capex set against fuel, freight and maintenance avoided.
ESG lead / project sponsor
Diesel litres and emissions reduced, reported annually in a form corporate or departmental reporting already accepts.
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-MG. Ask every supplier to answer each one in writing. Read the common questions.
If the battery converter cannot form the grid, you have bought a backup system, and the solar still drops out the moment supply is lost.
Remote sites lose their backhaul often, and a cloud-dependent dispatcher stops deciding exactly when the site is islanded.
Without coordinated control the engine is underloaded or back-fed, and the usual fix is curtailing the solar you paid for.
Start and stop alone cuts running hours; a setpoint lets the engine recharge storage at efficient load and cuts fuel within each hour.
Loads on a shared feeder cannot be shed individually, and this has to be on the single-line diagram before the panel is built.
A battery sized on a single number ends up either too small to carry the night or too large to pay for itself.
10 questions
A microgrid EMS is the controller that forms and holds a site's own grid when there is no utility supply behind it, and operates every source on the site — solar, storage, standby generation and the connection where one exists — against a single order of preference. Ingro EMS-MG resolves that order on every control cycle and issues a setpoint to each source.
Yes — that is the independent-supply case, for mines, estates, resorts, plantations and remote installations where the connection is being withdrawn or was never made. Generation and storage carry the base operation, standby generation is held in reserve, and the order of preference simply closes up where the utility supply would have sat.
Yes, in on-site and hybrid deployments. The controller operates the plant from the plant room, not from the cloud. Connectivity serves reporting, forecasting and remote support; site control continues without it.
A DG-PV controller keeps the engine safe by holding the solar back; it cannot store the surplus or carry the site without the engine. A microgrid controller adds the battery as the grid-forming source, so surplus solar is stored instead of curtailed and the engine starts only when stored energy runs short. The generator's own controller stays in charge of its protection.
The state-of-charge window, depth-of-discharge limits and throughput budget are enforced by the controller on every cycle, not left to operators, and battery health is reported against the warranty. Staff are trained at handover, the operator screen shows how long the site can hold at the present load, and remote support works whenever there is a link.
By marginal cost, subject to continuity. Solar generation is consumed first and its surplus stored in preference to export; battery storage covers the most expensive hours and is the first response to any loss of supply; the utility supply carries the balance within its demand ceiling and cheapest tariff windows; standby generation is engaged only when demand exceeds what storage can deliver. The order is the supplied default and is configurable.
Loss of supply is confirmed by voltage hysteresis; storage then establishes the site's voltage and frequency reference and the array continues to generate against it. On return, a stability hold precedes resynchronisation, after which the load is transferred back automatically or on operator confirmation, according to the reconnection policy you configure.
Mines, plantations, resorts, settlements, telecom sites and camps, wherever the utility supply is weak, being withdrawn or was never made.
The utility supply joins the order of preference rather than replacing anything: solar first, the battery next, the grid within a demand ceiling and its cheaper tariff windows, the generator last. The same plant then also works the tariff and holds the demand charge.
Storage takes the load once the loss of supply is confirmed, but how clean the changeover is depends on the switchgear, not the controller. A plain transfer switch gives a brief interruption; no-break operation needs static or paralleling gear. Decide what interruption your process can tolerate and have it written into the equipment schedule before ordering.
Still have a question?
Send us your site, hardware and tariff or tender, and an engineer will answer it.
Go deeper
Off-grid and weak-grid sites.
Sizing, equipment, EMS, installation and O&M from one team.
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-MG 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-MG, written against the outcomes you set.