Tenaga Berhad Nasional – Effective Alarm Management

Read how Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) leverages Asset Intellect and Alarm Sentinel to improve operational efficiency, streamline data management, and enhance decision-making across its operations through industry leading alarm management.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) is Malaysia’s largest electricity utility and the cornerstone of the nation’s power infrastructure. As the primary electricity provider across Malaysia, TNB operates an extensive transmission network spanning over 400 substations energized at 132, 275, and 500 kV levels.

The utility maintains critical international interconnections through 132 kV HVAC and 300 kV HVDC transmission lines to Thailand, and 230 kV cables to Singapore, ensuring regional energy security and grid stability across Southeast Asia.

The company is also a leader in digital transformation, exploring innovations such as autonomous equipment, advanced analytics, and integrated remote operations.

The challenge

TNB’s control rooms were experiencing high alarm rates that included numerous chattering alarms, communication losses, and suspect data quality issues. This flood of information made it difficult for operators to identify and prioritize the alarms that truly required immediate attention. The situation was further complicated by the organizational separation of Operations and Asset Management functions, which created barriers to accessing critical alarm and event information outside the control room network.

When TNB’s Grid Division was tasked with managing their own alarms independently as part of organizational restructuring, they recognized the need for a dedicated solution that could provide the same level of operational insight previously available through the control room SCADA system. While the PI system served effectively for data management and analysis, TNB identified that a specialized alarm management platform would be required to fully support their asset management objectives and operational requirements.

The solution

TNB evaluated potential approaches, including internal development, to select the most effective solution for their operational requirements. Through this assessment, TNB chose Asset Intellect and Alarm Sentinel, as we offered off-the-shelf, well-engineered products that achieved, and exceeded their operational requirements.

Asset Intellect & Alarm Sentinel seamlessly integrated with TNB’s existing infrastructure, connecting PI, OMS, Automatic Fault Analysis, Qlik Sense, cameras, and weather mapping systems to eliminate information silos. Asset Intellect & Alarm Sentinel also incorporated robust data quality analysis capabilities, performing daily assessments across large numbers of tags to ensure information reliability and prevent the suspect data issues that had contributed to the original challenges.