You've just received an email informing you of the completion of your thermal inspection. Great! 🎉 A quick dive in the platform reveals some hotspots, a string that's down, some open panels and several potential PID issues.
You have two options now:
Export the anomalies to Excel or PDF and start working.
Learn more about the different types of reports you can export.OR
Embrace the digital age and use a nice platform with a mobile field app to take care of these issues efficiently.
We'll assume you went for the second option. 😉
1️⃣ Exploration
There are a lot of anomalies visible when you open up the operation.
Let's take a look at what information we can use to determine which anomalies are worth investigating further and what we should do about them. Clicking on one of the anomalies on the map reveals a lot of useful information.
You can see that this specific anomaly might be a PID issue, which is a physical problem inside the module. It's not too bad yet though, as the panel has only lost 20% of its capacity.
There's a lot more data to explore in the other sections, but let's zoom in on the Remedial section for this tutorial. If we open it up, we'll find SIDEREAL's recommendations for this anomaly.
The Remedial Action field highlights what action to take for this anomaly. Since the problem isn't too bad yet, the Fuse platform suggests to monitor it. That means we'll keep an eye on this panel to see if the problem becomes worse. You can do that through your monitoring system, with field checks or using your yearly drone scans. Don't worry, we'll keep track of it for you and let you know if anything pops up. 😉
The Estimated Remedial Cost highlights what that remedial action will cost you. It's handy to prioritise remedial actions. Learn more about remedial costs.
The Status field tells you whether you should still have a look at the anomaly, a fix is in progress, the issue has been resolved or you won't do anything about it. In this case we'll leave it on To Do until we've gathered more information to make a decision.
2️⃣ Prepare remedial actions
You've seen an example of a remedial action in the previous section. Here's a table that highlights the different remedial actions supported by the platform.
Name | Description |
Replace | Replace the module with a new one. |
Repair | Repair the problem. Assumes 1 hour of work for a technician. |
Quick Fix | Quick repair. Assumes 10 minutes of work for a technician. |
Move | Move the module to a different string or change the wiring. Assumes 30 minutes of work for a technician. |
Clean | Clean the module or remove obstructions. |
Remove Vegetation | Remove the vegetation affecting the module. |
Field Check | More information has to be gathered in the field to determine a remedial action. |
Monitor | Problem isn't severe enough yet. Check again in the next drone scan. |
Warranty | Include the module in a warranty claim towards the manufacturer. |
Do Nothing | No action required. |
If any of the recommended remedial actions are incorrect, or if you want to include some modules in a warranty claim, you can edit the anomaly to change it. You can edit them one-by-one or in bulk using our bulk edit feature.
Depending on the remedial action, you'll now prepare a few more things. For all of these cases, you'll filter out the anomalies with certain remedial actions.
🛠 Technical field work
Modules that have to be replaced, repaired or moved, have to be sent to your technical team. You can filter out these issues and either export them as Excel or PDF, or send them to the Field Link to automatically get the updates back into the Fuse platform.
Learn more about the Field Link
🌱 Routine site maintenance
If the modules have to be cleaned or vegetation has to be removed you should either wait for the next routine maintenance to take place, or order a next service.
We actually recommend performing your routine maintenance before a thermal inspection to avoid these kind of thermal anomalies.
📋 Warranty claim
If additional information has to be collected, the Field Link is a great way to do that. Once all the information is available, a PDF report is usually enough to complete your claim.
Learn more about the Field Link
3️⃣ Complete remedial actions
If you're using the Field Link, completing a remedial action is as easy as changing the status of that task to resolved and importing the changes back into the platform.
If you're using the platform itself you can edit the anomaly to change the status to resolved.
All of the anomalies are marked as resolved or won't do? Epic! You've handled all of the issues!