This map supports the performance alert investigations guide. It is for renewable asset consultants preparing to ask a client's administrators which joins survive.
Four systems, one investigation
A renewable operator's investigation history typically lives in:
- Monitoring platform (SCADA or a performance analytics layer), which streams telemetry, computes expected output and raises the alert.
- Weather station or met mast data, which supplies irradiance, wind, temperature and humidity for the same time window.
- Analyst case log, which may be a module in the monitoring platform, a ticketing tool or a shared spreadsheet, holding the reasoning.
- Maintenance system (CMMS), which holds work orders, parts and failure codes.
Some operators add a fifth: availability reporting, such as NERC's GADS for wind, where cause codes identify the equipment that caused an outage and the Contributing Operating Condition is required when equipment fails during weather.
The map: system, record, joining key, owner
| System | Record it holds | Key that joins it to the rest | Usual owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monitoring platform | Alert, telemetry window, expected-output value | Asset tag and alert start time | Asset owner, administered by the operator |
| Monitoring platform | Expected-output model or reference curve | Model version and effective date | Performance engineering |
| Weather station | Irradiance or wind, temperature, humidity | Site ID and timestamp | Asset owner |
| Analyst case log | Investigation note, hypothesis, decision to dispatch or not | Alert ID, or asset and date | Operator's control room |
| Maintenance system | Work order, part replaced, failure code | Equipment number mapped to the asset tag; work order number | Operator's maintenance lead |
| Monitoring platform or reporting | Confirmed cause and verification trend | Alert ID or work order number | Performance engineering |
The weak point is usually the mapping between monitoring tags and maintenance equipment numbers. Tags change after controller upgrades or repowering; equipment numbers change after a CMMS migration. If nobody maintains the mapping, the two halves of an investigation drift apart.
One fully joined case (Illustrative)
A fictional case, invented for this page, for a 260-person solar operations and maintenance company running a 120 MW plant for an owner. Identifiers are placeholders.
| Step | System | What the record says | Key used to join |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alert | Monitoring platform | Inverter 14 output 18% below expected at high irradiance, 11:20 | Asset tag INV-14, start time |
| Context | Weather station | Clear sky, irradiance steady, module temperature normal | Site ID, 11:00 to 12:00 window |
| Reasoning | Analyst case log | Neighboring inverters normal; one string combiner showing zero current; dispatch | Alert ID on the case entry |
| Repair | Maintenance system | Blown string fuse replaced next morning | Equipment number mapped to INV-14; work order number on the case entry |
| Cause | Maintenance system | Failure code: string protection | Work order number |
| Verification | Monitoring platform | Inverter 14 tracks expected output for the following week | Asset tag and post-repair window |
Every hop used a different key, and the case reads as one investigation only because the analyst wrote the work order number into the case entry. The worked exception case shows why the weather-only half of such histories matters just as much.
Where the joins break
| Join | What breaks it | What remains afterwards |
|---|---|---|
| Asset tag to equipment number | Tags renamed after a controller upgrade; mapping not maintained | Alerts and repairs that cannot be paired |
| Time window | Telemetry downsampled or purged after a set period | Alerts with no evidence around them |
| Alert to work order | No shared key; free-text mention only | Matching by asset and date, unreliable on busy days |
| Expected-output version | Model recalibrated without keeping the old one | Old alerts that cannot be recomputed |
| Confirmed cause | Weather-only cases never get a work order | Equipment causes only, half the story |
| Verification | Post-repair check run but never saved | Repairs with no proof they worked |
The expected-output row deserves emphasis. For wind, IEC 61400-12-1 sets the procedure for measuring a single turbine's power performance, with an uncertainty assessment alongside the measured curve; for solar, IEC 61724-1 defines classes of monitoring systems. Whichever reference an operator used, the version in force when an alert fired is part of the evidence.
Questions for the monitoring and maintenance administrators
- Is there a maintained mapping between monitoring asset tags and maintenance equipment numbers, and since when?
- How long is high-resolution telemetry kept before downsampling?
- Do case entries carry the alert ID, and do work orders carry it back?
- Are expected-output model versions retained with their effective dates?
- Where are weather-only conclusions written?
Record only the answers. The maintenance side is covered in depth on CMMS work order data and CMMS migration. IT teams face a similar join between alerts and incidents, described in exporting PagerDuty incidents, and formal investigation write-ups are covered on root cause analysis records. Investors sometimes confuse dashboards with this history; portfolio monitoring data versus operational data explains the difference.
PagerDutyOwners of each join, and qualification
Ownership often splits: the asset owner holds the telemetry and the platform, while the operator holds the case log and the maintenance system. The operations agreement decides, and counsel reads it. When the map is filled in, carry the answers into the performance alert referral brief.
The company needs 50+ full-time employees at peak (contractors excluded), documented operating history, rights to license and an authorized contact. Companies in the U.S., Canada and the EU qualify, as do companies in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore, South Africa, Latin America, the UAE and Saudi Arabia when at least 90% of the data is in English. What stays unknown until SourceX reviews it: demand for joined investigation histories, the rights result where telemetry belongs to the asset owner, the preparation required and any offer. Partners sign the Channel Partner Agreement before submitting, and the first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application.
Next step
Refer a company. Earn up to $100,000. Default reward: 25% of Actual Supplier Payout, capped at $100,000 cumulatively per referred company. Eligibility and payment conditions apply, and a signed Schedule A or addendum can differ. A lead, meeting or signature alone does not trigger payment.
If the administrators confirm a maintained tag mapping and case entries that carry alert and work order numbers, register as a partner, check the operator on who qualifies and read the program terms before you introduce its asset operations director.