There is a gap between when most renewable energy operators detect a problem on an asset and when they actually do something about it. That time period can be costly, prevent megawatts from reaching the grid, and influence one’s position with offtakers, lenders, and OEMs.
A free, on-demand Factor This web event, IoT Alert to Action: How Renewable Energy Operators Are Closing the Maintenance Gap, presented by Verosoft, illustrates how a handful of renewable operators are closing that gap. It explores how IoT alerts, predictive maintenance, and EAM workflows can work together to enable faster response times, automate work orders, and improve visibility across distributed solar, battery energy storage systems, and other assets. Verosoft’s Benjamin Brousseau, a lead business solutions consultant for EAM implementation with over seven years of experience leading TAG implementations, shares success stories from operators currently running TAG Mobi, including a case study from Amin Renewables.
Register here to watch the webcast anytime.
Where the IoT Operational Gap Resides
According to Brousseau, the operational gap exists because most IoT investments stop at monitoring, leaving often overwhelmed humans to make critical decisions that ultimately compromise uptime.
“You need a manual action. You’re relying on someone to create a work order or make a decision,” Brousseau explained. “And to me, that last step is really the breaking point. It depends on who’s on shift, who saw the alert, what other alerts did they get in that hour, and whether they trust the alert enough to call somebody.”
In an all-too-real hypothetical, Brousseau suggested a scenario in which an inverter throws a fault on a Friday evening. An on-call technician spots it, but since there were hundreds of other alerts that day, the technician deprioritizes the fault, assuming it’s a false alarm. By Monday morning, the asset in question has been operating at a degraded capacity for 60 hours. Even worse if the fault was on a combiner box, which would multiply its impact across an entire solar array, for example.
“We really understand that the manual action is what blocks the IoT investment,” said Brousseau. “What Tagg wants to do is really turn IoT signal into automated action. It’s connecting those assets to real maintenance execution… Someone, boots on the ground, is going to fix those assets, all while reducing noise and turning sensor data into work orders.”
“The goal isn’t more alerts,” he added. “The goal is early detection. It’s less noise.”
Live Demo And Integration
In the on-demand webcast, Brousseau runs a live demo of TAG Mobi and walks through its closed-loop architecture. After the demo, he delves into an operator story about how Voltwise has used TAG for battery energy storage applications, detailing the operational outcomes of such a development.
During the question-and-answer portion of the event, a potential customer asks whether TAG Mobi can be integrated with its current SCADA system.
“TAG Mobi doesn’t replace your SCADA system; it integrates with it,” Brousseau confirmed. “You don’t have to invest in new sensors. You keep your existing monitoring stack, and then TAG provides the workflow layers on top of it to go from signal to wallet.”
Key Takeaways
Key takeaways from IoT Alert to Action: How Renewable Energy Operators Are Closing the Maintenance Gap include:
- Turning IoT alerts into actionable maintenance workflows
- Reducing manual handoffs, delays, and disconnected systems
- Improving uptime, field execution, and asset visibility
- Seeing real-world examples from BESS and utility-scale solar operations
- How to start small, invite the right stakeholders, and when to expect the all-important ROI
Source link