Demand alerts flag unexpected and unintended levels of energy demand in your building. You define your expected demand and set a threshold that indicates a problem. When demand exceeds this threshold, you receive an email notification, and an event is displayed on the load chart. You can then update the event status, leave comments, and track performance across your portfolio via central dashboards.
Example use cases:
| Situation | Alert setup |
|---|---|
| Monitoring overnight base load | Set a threshold just above the normal baseline for overnight monitoring. If the building isn’t properly shut down or if the base load drifts up, you’ll be warned. |
| Monitoring weekend runs | Set a threshold based on expected levels for weekend days. If the building is left at weekday settings, an alert will be triggered. |
Managing alert policies
To manage your alerts, visit the policy manager page for a meter in your account, found on the Alerts tab.
The policy manager contains several sections:
- A preview of your meter’s demand, including up to 52 weeks of historical data (depending on how long the meter has been reporting). Each week’s demand is represented by a gray line, and the average demand by the heavy red line. Existing policies are shown as translucent orange bars.
- A form for creating a new policy or editing existing ones.
- A list of existing policies, with controls for modifying them.
Setting up a new alert policy
To create a new policy, use the form below the load curve preview.
- Select the days of the week you want the policy to be active.
- (Optional) Set the start and end time you want the policy to be active. You can select preset times from the dropdown menus, or type a custom time. If you leave these blank, the policy will be continuously active on the days you select.The times shown are in local time for the building, which may not be the same as the time shown on your computer if you’re in a different time zone. The building’s time zone is displayed below the form.
- Set the demand threshold you want to test for, in kW. Once you’ve filled out the form, you’ll see a preview of the new policy overlaid in purple on the chart, and an estimate of how many alert events will be generated annually based on your settings.
- The width of the overlay bars represents the time window in which the policy is active, and the bottom edge of the bars shows the kW threshold. Based on where this overlaps the historical demand lines, you can see how likely it is to trigger an alert at a given time of day.
- After adjusting the policy settings to your liking, click the Add alert policy button. The policy will appear in the list below and will begin actively monitoring your meter.
Editing an existing policy
After a policy has been active for a while, you may want to adjust the settings to tune how frequently alert events and notifications are generated.
- Find the relevant policy in the list and click the Edit button (pencil icon) on the far right. The details will appear in the form, and the policy will be highlighted in purple in the preview chart.
- Adjust the policy settings as needed.
- Click the Save alert policy button to confirm your changes.
Temporarily deactivating a policy
In some cases, you may want to temporarily stop a policy from monitoring or sending notifications. For example, if your building will be running outside of normal hours for an event, you’d expect higher demand and alerts wouldn’t be useful.
There are two options:
- Pause: Click the Pause button (two vertical bars icon) on the far right. While paused, the policy will not monitor your meter and will not generate alert events or send notifications.
- Mute: Click the Mute button (bell icon) on the far right. While muted, the policy will continue to monitor your meter and generate alert events, but will not send notifications.If your policy is muted but not paused, you will still see events on the weekly report for that meter; only real-time notifications are disabled.
In both cases, the policy will automatically reactivate after 24 hours to avoid accidentally leaving it inactive.
Viewing alert events
When Gridium detects demand exceeding the threshold for an active policy, it generates an alert event, shown as a red bar overlaid on the load chart for that meter.
As in the policy preview chart, the width of the overlay bar represents the time window in which the demand threshold was exceeded, and the bottom edge shows the policy threshold in kW.
Events end when one of two conditions is met:
- The meter’s demand drops below the policy threshold level
- The policy’s active time window ends
If the time window ends before demand drops, you may see high demand continuing on the chart beyond the edge of the red overlay.
To view details, hover over the overlay bar. You’ll see the date and time the event began, the demand threshold that was exceeded, and the actual demand at the point your cursor is over.
Comments and status updates
Clicking on an event on the load chart opens a pop-up window where you can manage the alert status and discuss the issue with your team.
An event can have four possible statuses:
- New: Open with no interaction.
- Investigating: Open and under investigation.
- No Action: Closed with no work required.
- Resolved: Closed after resolving the issue.
When an event is first created, its status is set to New. Click the buttons at the top of the window to change its status.
Investigating an event
To acknowledge an alert and indicate that you’re investigating the problem, click the I’m investigating button. The event’s status will change, and an entry will appear in the history showing when the update was made and by whom.
Leaving a comment for your team
To add detail about what you’re doing, leave a comment on the alert event. Type your message and click the Submit comment button. The comment will appear in the history along with any status updates.
Other users in your account can also leave comments on the event to collaborate on finding a solution.
Closing an event
Once the investigation is complete, click the Close event button.
When closing an event, you’re required to enter a comment explaining the outcome of your investigation. After typing the comment, choose between two options: click No action needed if the problem doesn’t require further attention, or click Event has been resolved if you’ve addressed the issue. In either case, the event status will change and an update will be added to the history.
Re-opening an event
If after closing an event you find it needs more attention, click the I’m investigating button again to re-open it.
Notification emails
When an alert event occurs, Gridium can also notify you via email. The options depend on how your meter is set up.
Instant notifications
If your alert policy is set up on a real-time meter or a utility meter that provides data with less than a 48-hour delay, Gridium sends a notification email as soon as demand exceeds your policy’s threshold. This email goes to any user subscribed to reports for that meter.
Helpful Hint: Various factors may delay data from real-time meters, including meter and network settings. Gridium sends instant notifications as soon as it receives the data, but they may not be fully real-time.
The notification email includes:
- The date and time the event occurred
- A visual chart showing the meter’s demand, with the new alert event overlaid
- The policy demand threshold that was exceeded
- The actual demand at the time it was exceeded
The email also contains links to the policy that generated the alert and to the event details on the load chart, where you can manage status updates and comments.
Weekly report emails
For all meters, the Monday morning report email includes any demand alerts from the prior week. As with instant notifications, this email goes to any user subscribed to reports for that meter.
This email includes:
- A visual chart showing the meter’s demand, with all events overlaid
- The date and time each event occurred
- The policy demand threshold that was exceeded during each event
- The actual demand at the time it was exceeded
Each event includes a link to view its details on the load chart, where you can manage status updates and comments.