Smart alarms

What do I need to know about smart alarms?

Centralized alarm management

• VCOM provides centralized management of alarms for your entire portfolio.

• Choose from a range of sophisticated alarms to suit your individual needs.

• At-a-glance view in the control room highlights the systems requiring your immediate attention.

• The designated Alarms portlet provides detailed information about your alarms. See Alarms portlet.

Configuring alarms

• Configure alarms within the settings of an individual system, then transfer the settings to your other systems.

• Define three different severities (normal, critical, and high)

• Choose whether to trigger the alarm 24/7 or only between sunrise and sunset in your time zone. 

• Optionally configure an alarm delay, which only triggers an alarm in case of persistent incidents. 

• For certain alarms, you may also need to edit the settings in other system settings tabs, such as Data sources or Calculations.

Time-saving features

• Directly transform an alarm into a ticket. See Ticket system

• The optional Autopilot feature automatically closes alarms if the same error does not occur again after a defined period.

How are incidents and alarms related?

• Once you have activated and configured your alarms, VCOM logs an incident when the criteria for these alarms are met.   

• An alarm is triggered at this time, or, if you have configured a delay, after the delay has elapsed. A device error alone, e.g. an inverter error, will not trigger an alarm, but if the inverter is faulty, a misproduction alarm will be triggered, and the inverter error will be linked to that alarm.

• The color-coded Bell icons on the sidebar indicate systems with open alarms. Critical alarms are represented by a red Alarm icon. Right-click on this icon to perform quick actions.

• View all alarm details in the Alarms portlet.

• If an incident of the same type and on the same component occurs again while the alarm is open, it will be assigned to the same alarm. You can view all incidents in the Incidents portlet.

• When you close an alarm, either manually or via the autopilot feature, incidents associated with that alarm will not trigger another alarm.  

Alarms portlet

The Alarms portlet gives you a complete overview of all the alarms, at both the portfolio and system level. You can decide which columns to display and in what order, filter alarms according to various criteria, view the details of each alarm, create tickets based on the alarms, and more – all in one place.

• At the portfolio level, the portlets display all alarms in your entire portfolio. Go to the portfolio level > Control room > Plus icon on the top bar > Portlet center dropdown > select the Alarms portlet.

• To view alarms that only apply to a specific system, select the Arrow icon next to the system name to access the cockpit for that system. The Smart alarms tab at the system level contains the Alarms portlet by default.

We recommend giving the portlet sufficient space since it contains many functionalities, as illustrated here:

Item	Name	Details
1	Smart alarms tab	This tab is available by default at the system level
2	Download icon	Download the list as a CSV
3	Wrench icon	Choose which columns to display
4	Screen icon	Expand portlet to full-screen
5	Bulk ticket actions	Tick multiple checkboxes to: Group alarms into a ticket Close alarms
6	Further actions	Ticket icon: Create a ticket Check mark: Close an alarm Magnifying glass: View alarm details
7	ID	5-character alphanumeric System ID
8	Severity	Critical, high, or normal
9	System	System name
10	Alarm level	Does the alarm affect the overall system or just a device? System Data logger Device (inverter, sensor, power plant controller, etc.)
11	Alarm type	See What types of alarms are there?
12	Affected devices	Designations of the affected devices
13	Affected power	Percentage of power affected by the incident
14	Duration	How long the incident has lasted
15	Last change	Time since last alarm update
16	Losses	Yield loss due to the incident in kWh. See Yield loss calculation
17	Status	Alarm open Alarm closed
18	Ticket	Related ticket
19	Search bar and filters	Active search filters are displayed in a dark color

What types of alarms are there?

Total outage alarms

In the case of a total outage, for example of the inverters, string combiner boxes, or the entire system, you can decide when VCOM will react with an alarm.

More about total outage alarms: click here for details

In the case of a total outage, for example of the inverters, string combiner boxes, or the entire system, you can decide when VCOM will react with an alarm.

Target source calculation: See Simulation methods for smart alarms

Nominal power: The manufacturer's indication of the power output of the system under normal conditions.

For example, if a PV system has 100 kWp of power and you set the nominal power to 7.5%, the misproduction alarm is only triggered if the system exceeds 7,5 kW of power. 

Delay: If you configure a delay, e.g. 30 minutes, an alarm will only be triggered in case of persistent incidents. This helps to avoid alarms for deviations that only occur for a short time.

Misproduction alarms 

Misproduction alarms notify you about the variance between target and measured values for the overall system and individual inverters.

More about misproduction alarms: click here for details

Misproduction alarms notify you about the variance between target and measured values for the overall system and individual inverters. There are several methods for estimating the theoretical production (“simulation”) of your system under normal operating mode: machine learning-based simulation, physical simulation model, and automatic inverter comparison. An alarm is triggered if there is a deviation between the target value and the measured value when the minimal threshold value exceeds the minimum deviation of the alarm category "normal". The target value and the comparison to the measured value are calculated on an interval basis, both for the whole system and for each inverter each time the data is updated.

Severity: To test the effect of different severity values on misproduction alarms, go to Misproduction alarms > Interactive dummy tool.

Nominal power: The manufacturer's indication of the power output of the system under normal conditions. For example, if a PV system has 100 kWp of power and you set the nominal power to 7.5%, the misproduction alarm is only triggered if the system exceeds 7,5 kW of power. 

Delay: If you configure a delay, e.g. 30 minutes, an alarm will only be triggered in case of persistent incidents. This helps to avoid alarms for deviations that only occur for a short time.

Target source calculation: See Simulation methods for smart alarms.

Communication loss alarms

Communication loss alarms reflect the loss of communication between VCOM and the data loggers on site.

More about communication loss alarms: click here for details

Communication loss alarms reflect the loss of communication between VCOM and the data loggers on site. You can choose the monitoring period and define the alarm severity. A communication loss does not necessarily mean a yield loss, but this is an incident you will want to investigate. The longer the communication loss, the higher the severity of the alarm.

Sensor alarms

Sensor alarms reflect non-valid irradiance data during the normal operating mode of the system.

More about sensor alarms: click here for details

Sensor alarms reflect non-valid irradiance data during the normal operating mode of the system. In the example, the alarm is triggered by default when the measured irradiance drops below 10W/m² and the measured system power is above 2% of the installed system power during the same interval. Severity and delay can be configured here as well.

String alarms

String alarms reflect outages of single strings of a string combiner box or inputs for string inverters.

More about string alarms: click here for details

String alarms reflect outages of single strings of a string combiner box or inputs for string inverters. In this example, when at least one string of the string combiner box measures more than 10% of its nominal current during the daytime, the other strings are considered outages when they measure no current. For systems equipped with string combiner boxes, if all strings of one combiner box are outages, all the string alarms are grouped into a single string alarm. This minimizes the overall number of alarms and creates maximum transparency for the user. You can also set the severity and delay.

If your system uses string monitoring, follow these steps to set up your alarms:

1. On the sidebar at the system level, hover over the system for which you want to set up a string alarm.

2. Select the Wrench icon. This takes you to the system configuration. 

3. Check that string monitoring is activated: Select the Data sources tab and click on Current sensors in the sidebar.  

4. Select the Monitoring tab and select the String alarm dropdown.

5. Set the severity and trigger criteria and select Save. 

Data outage alarms

Data outage alarms are generated if data loggers are communicating with VCOM but no data is being imported.

More about data outage alarms: click here for details

Data outage alarms are generated if data loggers are communicating with VCOM but no data is being imported. As with other alarms, you can choose the monitoring period and a delay.

The following graphic illustrates a typical communication scenario between the data logger and VCOM in which two devices (dotted lines) are not sending data to the data logger in the bus communication. In this case, two different data outage alarms will be generated for the respective devices. These alarms will be displayed in the Alarms portlet.

Battery state of charge alarms 

If at least one battery is available in your system, you can set up an alarm to notify you if the battery’s state of charge (SOC) falls below or exceeds the tolerated range

More about battery state of charge alarms: click here for details

If at least one battery is available in your system, you can set up an alarm to notify you if the battery’s state of charge (SOC) falls below or exceeds the tolerated range. Moving outside of the range can negatively impact the lifespan of the battery. The range is generally defined in the manufacturer’s documentation. For battery alarms, you can set the alarm severity and delay.

In the example below, a critical alarm will be triggered if the state of charge falls below 30% or exceeds 70%. A delay period of 10 minutes ensures that short downtimes are not reported as an alarm.

Once the alarm is set up, you can view the state of charge as a chart in the Alarms portlet. In the example below, the red line reflects the period during which the state of charge is outside the tolerated range (between 10 AM and 2 PM).

User-defined static alarms

With user-defined static alarms, you can monitor single data points for your devices.

More about user-defined static alarms: click here for details

With user-defined static alarms, you can monitor single data points for your devices. For example, you can detect a deviation from a defined measured value such as inverter frequency on individual devices. For this, threshold values are defined (maximum, minimum, or permissible range). This alarm is triggered if the monitored data point exceeds or falls below the threshold value. You define the device type, criteria, and delay for generating each specific user-defined static alarm.

User-defined comparison alarms

User-defined comparison alarms allow you to dynamically compare two or more data points.

More about user-defined comparison alarms: click here for details

User-defined comparison alarms allow you to dynamically compare two or more data points. For example, if you have five irradiance sensors and want to check whether one of them is defective, you can compare the sensors to each other. If there is a deviation, an alarm will be triggered. Like the user-defined static alarms, you choose which devices and measured values are monitored.

Follow these steps to set up user-defined alarms:

Prerequisites

• At least one device is connected to your system.

Steps

1. On the sidebar at the system level, hover over the system for which you want to set up an alarm.

2. Select the Wrench icon. This takes you to the system configuration. 

3. Select the Monitoring tab and select User-defined alarms in the sidebar.

4. Select Static alarm if you want to monitor a single data point or Comparison alarm to dynamically compare two or more data points.

5. The settings you select will depend on the values you wish to monitor.

Simulation methods for smart alarms

You can choose from the following simulation methods for both misproduction and total outage alarms. The method you choose depends on your system setup and preferences. 

If you have selected a simulation method but it does not produce a value, and all your inverters fail simultaneously, a basic default calculation based on the sun's position will be performed. This calculation simply checks if power should be available, without considering the configured nominal power value.

To activate a simulation method, go to the System configuration (Wrench icon) > Monitoring > Alarms >  open Misproduction alarm (or Total outage alarm) > Trigger criteria > Select the desired simulation method.

Inverter comparison

For this method, the target value source is determined by comparing the inverters with each other. The respective input configuration is automatically considered. For this, all inverters are grouped based on their input ratios. Then, the best-performing inverter (the one with the highest normalized power) is established as a reference for other inverters in that group. In the next step, the normalized power is considered a target value for the inverters being compared.

Prerequisites

• All inverters are assigned to a subsystem.

Use case 1: Matching configuration

In this scenario, the VCOM Cloud would form two groups:

• Group 1: Inverter 1 and Inverter 2 (1:1 ratio of 95°/20° and 275°/20°)

• Group 2: Inverter 3 and Inverter 4 (1:1 ratio of 95°/30° and 275°/30°)

Use case 2: Multiple configurations that do not match another configuration

In this scenario, the VCOM Cloud would form three groups: 

• Group 1: Inverter 1 and Inverter 2 (1:1 ratio of 95°/20° and 275°/20°)

• Group 2: Inverter 3 and Inverter 4 (1:1 ratio of 95°/30° and 275°/30°)

• Group 3: Inverter 5 and Inverter 6 (rest)

Use case 3: Single configuration that does not match any other configuration

In this scenario, the VCOM Cloud would form only one group containing all the inverters. Otherwise, there would not be any reference for Inverter 3.

Physical simulation 

The physical simulation uses irradiance values. To gather the necessary data from the system configuration (the orientation and tilts of the system), the specific power (module and inverter) is first calculated for each orientation subsystem. The simulation is then generated based on the irradiance values for each orientation subsystem. Every subsystem is simulated with the irradiation from the sensor that is most like it. Similarity between subsystems and sensors is determined by calculating the correlation between the subsystem’s power measurements and the sensor radiation value.

Prerequisites

• All inverters are assigned to a subsystem

• At least one working irradiance sensor

	System configuration is retrieved, and the orientation subsystem is defined
	Installed sensors in the PV system are mapped to the respective orientation subsystem. Temperature values are taken into consideration
	Specific power for each orientation subsystem is calculated
	The values from the inverters and the installed power of the modules are used to calculate the specific yield for each orientation subsystem
	The target value per interval is calculated at the system level as a specific value
	The target value per interval is calculated at the system level as an absolute value

Machine learning simulation

Artificial intelligence is like the physical simulation, but uses historic data for more accurate simulations. Machine learning algorithms analyze the historic measured data of the PV system and optimize the physical simulation. This reduces the deviation between the measured power and the target power to achieve the most accurate target value. The machine learning simulation method can help you to achieve the most accurate results. To apply machine learning, the system must meet the following criteria:

 Prerequisites

• The number of inverters assigned to each subsystem has to match the number of inverters configured in that subsystem

• There are no "unknown" panels configured in any subsystem

• Manual correction of subsystem configuration is not taken into consideration

• 70% or more of the daytime data points are valid

• At least two weeks’ worth of valid training data within the last 30 days is available

 If valid training data is missing, the machine learning-optimized simulation will not be available, and a message is displayed on the simulation configuration page.

The physical and machine learning simulations are also relevant to the solar power chart simulation.

Which alarms do I choose?

The table provides an overview of which alarm level or device triggers which alarm:

How to transfer settings for alarms

Once you have set up your alarms for one system, you can transfer the settings to other systems of your choice. This eliminates the need to configure each system individually, saving time and ensuring consistency.

Prerequisites

• You have set up at least one alarm

Steps

1. On the sidebar at the system level, hover over the system you wish to use as a template.

2. Select the Wrench icon. This takes you to the system configuration. 

3. Select the Monitoring tab and select Transfer settings from the sidebar.

4. A window opens. Select whether you wish to transfer just the alarms, or the Autopilot feature as well.

5. Select the systems for which you wish to apply the settings and select Save.

6. Your settings will now be transferred to the systems you selected.

How to set up email notifications

This feature allows you to notify selected recipients of alarms by email. This is useful for example if you are currently working outside of VCOM but still want to be notified quickly of any incidents. You can send notifications about all alarms of all types or only specific alarms for the overall system.

Prerequisites

• You have set up at least one alarm

• The email recipients are set up as users. See Users and contacts

Steps

1. On the sidebar at the portfolio level, hover over the system for which you want to set up notifications.

2. Select the Wrench icon. This takes you to the system configuration. 

3. Select Monitoring > Notifications > New notification scheme.

4. Give your notification scheme a title and select the types of alarms you wish to include. See table “Which alarm types do I include in email notifications?”

5. Select recipients for the notification. Recipients must already be users in the system.
   

   

6. Click on Save. 

7. Email notifications are now set up. 

How to set up autopilot for smart alarms

The Autopilot feature automatically closes alarms of any type if the same error does not occur again after a user-defined period. This feature is intended for users who do not use the ticket system daily.

Prerequisites

• You have set up at least one alarm

Steps

1. On the sidebar at the system level, hover over the system for which you want to set up an alarm.

2. Select the Wrench icon. This takes you to the system configuration. 

3. Select the Monitoring tab and select Autopilot from the sidebar.

4. Activate the check box and select a time interval after which alarms will automatically be closed.

You can view which alarms were automatically closed in the Alarms portlet. Filter the alarms by Status > Closed alarms.