An alarm reduction application at a district heating plant

The proper handling of alarms is crucial to any automated process control. In practice, many alarms are only distractive and do not represent a fault situation. In an ongoing project a computerized tool is applied, that aims to remove such nuisance alarms, a so-called alarm cleanup. This is a general, systematic approach that takes advantage of the control system´s built-in functions, and is a first step to an enhanced overall alarm situation. In a first sharp case study, a significant reduction of the alarms was achieved at a biofueled district heating plant.