Inepro Metering: MID DIN-rail kWh meters for EV charging, solar and submetering

Overview

Inepro Metering is the electricity meter business of the inepro Group, a Dutch family company. The group's history starts in 1953, when Mr Clewits senior sold and refurbished energy meters and later added coin-operated gas meters, which led the family into payment systems. His son Ritske Clewits founded IPC Systems in 1990, which installed chip-card payment in Dutch hospitals and later in stadiums such as the Amsterdam Arena. The group moved from Leimuiden to its present head office in Nieuw-Vennep in 2010 and today has two businesses: inepro ID, which makes RFID readers, and inepro Metering, which says it has more than 32 years of experience in electricity metering.

The metering business is small and focused. Its about page puts 33 people on its metering products, at the Nieuw-Vennep headquarters and an office in Jiaxing, China. Its catalogue is almost entirely DIN-rail kWh meters: single- and three-phase, direct or CT-connected, MID-approved for billing, in versions for Modbus, M-Bus or pulse outputs.

What sets it apart is how closely it works with equipment makers. Meters are designed to be built into EV chargers, solar inverters and heat pumps as well as into distribution boards, and the company develops custom versions: for the Dutch charger maker Ratio Electric it built a PCB-mounted PRO380-Compact with integrated copper bars. It also runs a formal OEM and ODM service on a modular meter platform.

Offering

PRO series

The PRO series has 16 MID-approved models for billing. Suffixes give the interface: Mod for Modbus RTU, Mb for M-Bus, S for pulse output and 2T for two tariffs. The PRO1 is a one-module single-phase meter for 45 A, the PRO2 a two-module single-phase meter for 100 A and the PRO380 a four-module three-phase meter for 100 A direct or for current transformers. The PRO380-Mod is class B with two tariffs and a selectable S0 output, supports four-wire, three-wire, Aron, delta and single-phase connection, runs from minus 40 to plus 70 °C and carries MID and MIR approval with a five-year warranty. The PRO380-Eichrecht is a 40 A version with Modbus RTU and MID and MessEV approval for public charge points, and the PRO380-Compact is the smallest direct-connected three-phase MID meter in the range.

New PRO-line, Ambition and N series

The new PRO-line of PRO1, PRO2 and PRO3 meters measures to MID class C, plus or minus 0.5%, refreshes as fast as every 75 ms and offers Ba versions with a real-time clock for local tariff schedules. The Ambition series uses WAGO push-in terminals; the Ambition 4PU is a four-module 65 A three-phase meter with switchable M-Bus or Modbus RTU, four tariffs and MID, MIR and Metas approval, and an Ambition Modbus TCP gateway connects the range to a server. The low-cost N series was developed for EV-charging load balancing.

Other products and services

The catalogue also lists PRO-Flex portable meters for campsites and marinas, PRO CT current transformers including split-core versions, infrared readers and a configuration app, and Tunkia equipment for testing the accuracy of charge points on site. OEM and ODM work covers customer-branded meters and complete market-ready designs. Prices are not published; meters are sold through resellers and directly to manufacturers.

Technology

Modbus layout

The Modbus meters share one register layout, documented in the PRO380 user manual, version 2.18. Addresses are printed in hexadecimal and every measurement is a two-register IEEE-754 float, high word first, in volts, amps, kilowatts or kilowatt-hours. The PRO380-Mod has its RS-485 port on terminals 22 and 23. The single-phase PRO1-Mod, a 17.5 mm one-module meter for 5(45) A, uses the same layout on terminals 23 and 24, so rows for the second and third phases and per-phase energy do not apply to it. The address, baud rate and parity are set from the front panel or through the infrared eye with inepro's configuration app.

Third parties document the meters too. The Belgian energy-management company Eniris lists the PRO380 among the meters its controllers read, over RS-485 only, in its device documentation, with the factory address of 1 and the front-panel menu for changing it.

Approvals

The PRO380 range carries an NMi-issued MID certificate valid from 2024 to 2034, and individual models add MIR, UKCA and Swiss Metas approval. The PRO380-Eichrecht adds approval under the German MessEV for public charging. MID class B applies to most PRO and Ambition meters; the new PRO-line is class C.

Information security and sustainability

The company's sustainability page shows ISO/IEC 27001 certification by Kiwa alongside ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and an EcoVadis rating. It reports a 49.6% cut in CO2 emissions since 2019, an 84.8% fall in scope 1 and 2 emission intensity from 2018 to 2024 and a target of carbon neutrality by 2035, helped by a headquarters heated and cooled with geothermal energy.

Customers

Ratio Electric

Ratio Electric, a family business in Nijkerk, Netherlands, founded more than 50 years ago as a maker of cables, wiring harnesses and connectors, uses the PRO380-Compact in its io6 Pro charging station. The station offers a stable back-office connection, dynamic load balancing and solar compatibility. Ratio wanted the meter mounted on its circuit board rather than on a DIN rail, so inepro developed a prototype with four integrated copper bars; PCB mounting made the station more compact and cheaper to build, sped up assembly and simplified repairs. Johan Klunder, Ratio's head of research and development, said the PRO380-Compact was the only meter on the market that met its requirements, and pointed to stricter billing rules in markets such as Norway and the United Kingdom.

Meerzicht, Knokke-Heist

For the Meerzicht residence in the Duinenwater development at Knokke-Heist, Belgium, the distributor Ecompany supplied 485 PRO1 meters and advised the installer, Elektro Deblaere & Co. The meters measure lockable power sockets in a 1.6 hectare underground car park with 250 garage boxes, 120 parking spaces and 190 storage units, where residents charge e-bikes and cars. An Elvaco M-Bus master collects the readings, and the building manager allocates each socket's consumption to its owner by meter serial number.

Markets

Inepro lists nine markets: electrical panel building, EV charging, photovoltaic systems, industry, smart homes and building automation, heat pumps, utilities, campsites and marinas, and data centres and telecoms. The meters fit two kinds of buyer. Equipment makers build them into chargers, inverters and heat pumps, where a small MID meter with a documented Modbus interface lets the product bill or balance load accurately; for them the OEM, ODM and PCB-mounting work matters most. Installers, panel builders and distributors use the DIN-rail meters for submetering in buildings, car parks, campsites and marinas, often read over M-Bus or Modbus by a building or energy-management system.

EV charging is the most visible focus. The N series was designed for load balancing, the PRO380-Eichrecht for German public charging and the PRO380-Compact for integration into charger electronics, and the catalogue includes Tunkia test equipment for checking charge-point accuracy on site.

The company sells through resellers and directly to manufacturers, with its site in English, Dutch, German and Spanish. The group has a US company, inepro USA LLC, and a sales contact in Australia and New Zealand, Paytec, according to the inepro Group site.

Company

Group and ownership

Inepro Metering belongs to the inepro Group, whose holding company is inepro Group B.V., with headquarters at Pondweg 7, 2153 PK Nieuw-Vennep, as the contact page and group site state. The group comprises inepro ID, inepro Metering, inepro USA LLC in Florida and Jiaxing inepro Metering in Zhejiang, China. The legal entity and registration number of the metering business are not published on its site.

Leadership

Founder Ritske Clewits led the group until October 2024, when he handed the chief executive role to Jeroen Pynenburg, according to the group history. The metering team's about page shows business development and product staff, including Jasper Bosgraaf, without giving their roles.

Milestones

The group dates its roots to 1953 and IPC Systems to 1990, opened the Nieuw-Vennep head office in 2010, launched the Spider RFID reader series in 2021 and introduced the Ambition 4PU-DC-Mod meter in early 2024. The metering business now has 33 people working on its products. Revenue and group headcount are not published.