Method for implementing quality alarms in an energy management system remote terminal

Abstract

Methods for creating high quality alarms raise EMS operator awareness to abnormal conditions in monitored assets across multiple sites in a single EMS software platform. An embodiment includes steps for accessing an alarm designer software tool that contains a library of alarm definitions and the ability to create new alarm definitions, clone and edit existing alarm definitions, lock alarm definitions and delete alarm definitions. Applicable data is defined using channel attributes identifying which channel or channels associated with the multiple monitored sites are to be evaluated for alarming conditions. The alarm frequency, trigger conditions, pending open duration, close conditions, and pending close duration are also defined. Alarms can trigger upon one or more channels' behavior over periods of time and conditional relationships between multiple channels. Close conditions for an alarm can be, but are not required to be, the resolution of the trigger conditions.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of creating high quality alarms that raise EMS operator awareness to abnormal conditions in monitored assets across multiple sites in a single EMS software platform, the method comprising:
 accessing an alarm designer software tool that contains a library of alarm definitions and the ability to create new alarm definitions, clone and edit existing alarm definitions, test alarm definitions, lock alarm definitions and delete unlocked alarm definitions;   defining applicable channel data using one or more channel attributes identifying which channels associated with a site or sites are to be evaluated for alarming conditions;   defining alarm definition parameters, including the frequency, trigger conditions, pending open duration, close conditions, and pending close duration for the alarm;   applying the alarm definition parameters against test channel data having the defined applicable channel data;   generating test results, including potential alarm instances created, triggered alarms generated, and avoided triggered alarms resulting from the defined pending open and pending close durations; and   locking valid alarm definition parameters.   
     
     
         2 . A computer program product creating high quality alarms that raise EMS operator awareness to abnormal conditions in monitored assets across multiple sites in a single EMS software platform, comprising:
 a computer usable medium having computer readable program code embodied in the computer usable medium for causing an application program to execute on a computer system, the computer readable program code means comprising:   computer readable program code for accessing an alarm designer software tool that contains a library of alarm definitions and the ability to create new alarm definitions, clone and edit existing alarm definitions, test alarm definitions, lock alarm definitions and delete unlocked alarm definitions;   computer readable program code for defining applicable channel data using one or more channel attributes identifying which channels associated with the multiple monitored sites are to be evaluated for alarming conditions;   computer readable program code for defining alarm definition parameters, including the frequency, trigger conditions, pending open duration, close conditions, and pending close duration for the test alarm;   computer readable program code for applying the alarm definition parameters against test channel data having the defined applicable channel data;   computer readable program code for generating test results, including potential alarm instances created, triggered alarms generated, and avoided triggered alarms resulting from the defined pending open and pending close durations; and   computer readable program code for locking valid alarm definition parameters.