Lumel: Power network meters, transducers and industrial automation devices

Overview

Lumel was founded in Zielona Góra in western Poland in 1953 as a factory for electrical meters, produced its first moving-iron meter a year later and took the name Lubuskie Zakłady Aparatów Elektrycznych, LUMEL, in 1958, according to its history. By 1962 it had made its millionth analogue panel meter, and from 1969 it added recorders, transducers and multimeters. It became a state joint-stock company in 1997, and in 2011 the Ministry of Treasury sold 85% of the shares to the Indian instrument maker Rishabh Instruments.

The company now presents itself as a maker of industrial automation devices: network parameter meters and analysers, transducers, digital and analogue meters, recorders, controllers, current transformers and shunts, with automation systems for monitoring electricity, utilities, environmental conditions and solar plants. Its about page also offers electronics contract manufacturing, and every product carries a three-year warranty.

What sets Lumel apart among meter makers is the choice of interface on one measurement platform. The ND30 and NR30 families come in versions for IoT platforms, BACnet building management and Profinet PLCs, and the newer ND31 offers Modbus TCP, BACnet/IP and MQTT on the same meter. The buyer picks the protocol the building or plant already uses rather than adding a gateway.

Offering

Power network meters and analysers

The power network meters and analysers range runs to about 30 products. The ND20, ND20LITE, ND20CT, ND10, ND25 and N14 are panel meters. The ND30 family adds Ethernet, recording and a graphical screen; the ND31 adds 8 GB of recording, harmonics to the 63rd and MQTT, and the ND31U is its UL-certified version. On the DIN rail, the N43 and the NR30 family cover three-phase networks. The N100, ND45 and ND45PLUS are analysers; the ND45PLUS measures to class A and records more than 500 power-quality parameters to EN 50160. NP40, NP41 and NP45 are portable analysers, the NP41 to class S, and the range also includes synchronoscopes.

Energy meters

The NMID meters are MID approved: single-phase NMID10 for up to 100 A and NMID12 for up to 45 A, and three-phase NMID32 for 1 or 5 A CTs and NMID33 for up to 100 A direct. Each comes with Modbus RTU, with M-Bus or as a LITE version without communication. The NR10PLUS, NR12, NR32 and NR33 are non-MID energy meters.

Transducers, recorders and controllers

Transducers include the P41 and P43 network transducers, P10 to P21 AC, DC, temperature and universal transducers, P30 transducers with Ethernet, current transducers and humidity and temperature loggers. Recorders, temperature controllers, power-factor controllers and power controllers complete the catalogue.

Software and services

PROMOTIC Energy Start and Energy Pro are ready-made energy monitoring systems on the PROMOTIC SCADA software. Configuration uses the free eCon tool. Lumel's SMT and THT lines also build electronics for other companies under OEM, EMS and ODM agreements.

Technology

Modbus layouts

Lumel launched its first products with RS-485 in 1995, and most meters still carry a Modbus RTU port. The ND20 user's manual shows a layout typical of the range: register numbers are written in decimal and used unchanged, and the same measurements appear three times, as floats with the high word first from register 7000, as floats with the low word first from 6000, and as single 32-bit registers from 7500. Any of the three works, but a reader has to keep to one, since mixing them gives values in the wrong word order.

Ethernet protocols

The ND31 measures 54 parameters including harmonics to the 63rd in single-phase and three-phase three- or four-wire networks. It records up to 32 parameters to 8 GB of internal memory and offers Modbus RTU over RS-485 and Modbus TCP, MQTT and BACnet/IP over 10/100 Ethernet, with a web server, FTP server, DHCP client and NTP. Options add a 0 or 4 to 20 mA output and two Pt100 inputs. The ND30PNET and NR30PNET carry Profinet for PLCs.

Power quality and utility protocols

The ND45PLUS is the utility-facing instrument. It measures to class A of EN 61000-4-30, evaluates EN 50160, records harmonics and interharmonics to the 51st, flicker and events before and after dips and swells, and stores archives on an SD card of up to 32 GB. It speaks IEC 60870-5-104 for telecontrol alongside Modbus TCP and RS-485 Modbus, synchronises its clock by NTP or an optional GPS receiver and reads up to six additional pulse-output meters.

Quality systems

Lumel received ISO 9001 in 1995 and ISO 14001 in 2003 and obtained ISO/TS 16949 for automotive work in 2010. In 2020 it opened a new industrial automation plant, Lumel 4.0, at Zielona Góra.

Markets

Lumel sells to panel builders, original equipment manufacturers, integrators and utilities through distributors, and its group companies give it sales and manufacturing bases in India, China, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and the United States. Its catalogue maps products to the systems they join: BACnet versions for building management, Profinet versions for PLC-based machines and plants, IoT versions that publish to cloud platforms, MID meters for billing and class A analysers for supply-quality monitoring.

Energy companies are a growing market. In June 2025 Rishabh Instruments told the Indian exchanges that Lumel had signed a €5 million contract with a German company in the energy sector, and in April 2026 it disclosed a further €3 million order from the same customer for advanced electronic devices for industrial automation in the energy sector, to be supplied through the end of 2027. The customer is not named in either filing.

The range has also grown through acquisitions. In October 2020 Lumel agreed to take over Relpol's Zakład Polon branch in Zielona Góra, which makes CZIP protection controllers and SMP stationary radiation monitors, from 1 December 2020. In August 2024 it bought MICROSYS of Ostrava, the developer of the PROMOTIC SCADA software, which brought energy monitoring software into the catalogue and a Czech base into the group.

Company

Legal entity

The operating company is LUMEL S.A., ul. Słubicka 4, 65-127 Zielona Góra, registered with the District Court in Zielona Góra under KRS 0000592422 with share capital of PLN 13,975,000, as its contact page states. The register summary dates this entity to 16 December 2015, gives NIP 9731024988 and REGON 363245157, and classes it as a maker of measuring, testing and navigation instruments. It names five management board members, among them Dineshkumar Musalekar, and lists Dhruv Enterprises Limited as shareholder.

That date reflects a restructuring. Lumel opened a pressure die-casting plant in 2008, and in 2016 the business was split into LUMEL S.A. for electronic instruments and LUMEL ALUCAST Sp. z o.o. for die-castings, according to the company history. Both remain in the same group.

Ownership

Rishabh Instruments of Nashik, India, bought 85% of the shares from the Polish Ministry of Treasury in July 2011, by Lumel's account; Rishabh's own milestones page dates the acquisition to 2012. Rishabh listed on the BSE and NSE in September 2023, and its exchange filings now describe Lumel as a wholly owned and material subsidiary. The group also includes Lumel Alucast, Shanghai VA Instrument, MICROSYS and the Sifam Tinsley trading companies in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Recognition

Lumel was voted the best company of the previous 25 years in Zielona Góra in 2014, and in 2017 the Polish automation magazine APA named it the most popular brand in Poland.