Energy & Sustainability
Designing a turbine monitoring dashboard that gets used
A dashboard succeeds when a technician can decide what to do in seconds. This guide walks through scoping one for a small wind fleet, using illustrative figures rather than real data.
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Step one: choose a few decisions, not every signal
Start by listing the decisions the viewer must make: send a crew, slow a unit, or leave it alone. Then pick only the metrics that inform them. For a small site with four turbines, a useful top row might show output in kilowatts, rotor speed, wind speed at hub height and gearbox temperature. Sample reading: Turbine 3 produces 410 kW at 11 m/s while its gearbox runs 12 degrees above its neighbors. Comparison against sibling machines is often more revealing than a single threshold, so display each unit beside the fleet median.
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Step two: make status readable before it is detailed
Give every turbine one state: normal, watch or action needed, with the reason written in plain language beneath it. In the sample, Turbine 3 shows watch with the note gearbox temperature trending high for six hours. Place a short trend line next to the number so a reader sees direction without opening a chart. Keep color paired with text for accessibility, and show data freshness prominently, such as last update two minutes ago. A stale feed that looks healthy is more dangerous than an honest gap.
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Step three: connect alerts to a follow-up routine
Each alert should name an owner, a first check and a record of what happened. Using the sample, the watch on Turbine 3 notifies the maintenance lead, suggests inspecting the cooling circuit and logs the outcome when closed. Review alerts monthly: remove ones nobody acts on and tighten ones that arrive late. Document the sensor source for each metric so disagreements can be traced. Before any real deployment, validate thresholds with the manufacturer's guidance and a qualified engineer rather than relying on example numbers.