The template sits under the performance alert investigations hub. If you have not yet worked out who can approve, walk the who-can-say-yes tree first; the brief is where its answers end up.
The blank brief, ready to copy
Paste it into an email or a document. Fill every line, and write "unknown" rather than leaving one blank.
Subject: Performance alert investigation history at [operator]: referral brief
A. Operator: [full-time headcount at peak], [country], [year founded] B. Task: [how analysts take an underperformance alert to a confirmed cause and check the fix] C. Fleet covered: [number of sites], [wind, solar or both], [approximate capacity band, optional] D. Record classes: [alert history, telemetry windows, analyst notes, work orders, technician findings, post-repair checks, cause codes] E. Systems: [monitoring platform and who controls it], [case log or ticketing], [maintenance system], [field report app or shared drive] F. Years of closed cases: [from year to year], [where the practice changed] G. Volumes (estimates): [closed investigations], [work orders linked to alerts], [weather-only closures] H. Owners: [operator for which classes], [asset owners for which classes], [agreements still to read] I. Authorized contact: CEO, sponsor [role], counsel [in-house or outside] J. Access event: [operations agreement end, handover or platform change, with its documented source, or "none"] K. Open question: [one question only the review could answer] L. Not shared: no telemetry exports, site names, owner names or logins
How to fill the harder fields
Most lines take a minute. Four need care, because a vague answer there makes the brief hard to act on.
C and F, fleet and years. Give the honest range and say where it changes. "Closed cases since 2018; consistent notes only since 2020, when the case log replaced spreadsheets" is far more useful than "about eight years".
E, systems. Say who controls each one, not only what it is. The monitoring platform is often the asset owner's system, and the operator's analysts work inside it under the operations agreement. That single fact changes field H.
G, volumes. Ask for the weather-only count separately if anyone tracks it. Cases closed as weather with no failed equipment are the harder part of the problem: NERC's GADS wind instructions allow a weather cause code when no equipment failed, but when equipment fails during the weather, the failed equipment is the cause and the weather is recorded as the Contributing Operating Condition. A brief that says whether both kinds of closure are recorded tells the officer a lot in one line.
K, open question. Phrase it as something to be checked, never a promise. For this workflow the natural one is about the basis for "underperformance": whether alerts were raised against a measured power curve under IEC 61400-12-1 for wind, against a monitoring class under IEC 61724-1 for solar, or against an in-house model.
| Field | A good entry | Leave it out |
|---|---|---|
| A. Operator | "About 260 full-time staff at peak, U.S., founded 2009" | Revenue, client list |
| C. Fleet | "14 sites, wind and solar" | Site names, owner names |
| E. Systems | Product names as plain text, with who controls each | Logins, URLs, account IDs |
| G. Volumes | Rounded, labelled "estimate" | Counts run specially for the brief |
| H. Owners | Class by class, with "to confirm" where unread | Opinions on contract wording |
| J. Access event | A dated event with its source document named | "Soon" or an assumed date |
| L. Not shared | Always present, never edited | Nothing: this line stays |
Completed brief: a wind and solar operator (Illustrative)
Fictional, written for this page. No real operator, site or owner is described.
Subject: Performance alert investigation history at a renewable O&M company: referral brief (Illustrative)
A. Operator: about 260 full-time staff at peak, United States, founded 2009 B. Task: triaging underperformance alerts to a confirmed cause, separating weather from equipment, and verifying output after the repair C. Fleet covered: 14 sites, wind and solar D. Record classes: alert history, telemetry windows, analyst notes, work orders, technician findings, post-repair performance checks, cause codes E. Systems: owners' monitoring platforms (owner-controlled), operator's own case log, operator's maintenance system, field report app F. Years of closed cases: 2018 to now; analyst notes consistent from 2020 G. Volumes (estimates): about 2,400 closed investigations; about 900 linked work orders; weather-only closures tagged since 2021 H. Owners: operator for notes, work orders and procedures; asset owners for telemetry and alerts; four agreements not yet read I. Authorized contact: CEO, with outside counsel; asset operations director as sponsor J. Access event: operations agreement for four sites ends on the date in the owner's notice, which the operator will confirm K. Open question: where weather and equipment faults produced similar alerts, does each closed case record which signals decided it? L. Not shared: no telemetry exports, site names, owner names or logins
What the completed brief tells an officer
Read top to bottom, the example says three things without a single record attached. The operator's own reasoning (notes and work orders) is in systems it controls, so the core of the history is plausibly its own. The telemetry that gives each note context belongs to the owners, so any use of it raises consent questions the review will have to answer. And four sites leave the operator's care on a dated event, which is a real reason to decide soon rather than a manufactured one.
That is enough for the CEO to decide whether to take a call. It is not a dataset description, and it should not try to be one. The exception examples page shows what one closed case contains if the officer asks.
Checks before you forward it
- The sponsor has read the brief and confirms every value is theirs.
- Line L is intact, and nothing in lines A to K identifies a site, owner or person.
- The operator looks like it meets the baseline: 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.
- You have signed the Channel Partner Agreement. The first valid introduction within the 90-day window is credited when the company submits a verified application.
- Nothing implies an outcome. Buyer interest, the rights result, owner consent and any offer stay unknown until SourceX reviews the opportunity.
SourceX licenses approved business data directly from companies for AI training and evaluation and manages the agreement, rights review, data preparation, delivery and payout. For the covering message, adapt the warm introduction brief; for other workflows, the client opportunity brief generator produces a similar page. Related record types are covered under maintenance data for AI training and energy and utilities.
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.
Once the sponsor has signed off every line and the officer has agreed to a call, register as a partner, check the operator against who qualifies and read the program terms, then send the brief with your introduction.