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Utility alarm SMS for substation and plant crews

A breaker trips at a substation and no dispatcher is on shift. The line crew lead should hear it from a text, not a customer call. Welco texts the station, the point and the state from the alarm email your SCADA or QEI master station writes. Nothing new goes into the control house or onto the SCADA network.

Text me my SCADA alarmsBook a demo

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  • Nothing added in the control house
  • One email address to add
  • No per-lineman fees

Works by email with

  • QEI
  • PI System & historians
  • Generator & power

Setup guide for

  • VTScada

A substation one-line for North Sub: breaker 1242 on feeder 2 opens, the feeder loses power and the RTU reports it to the master station. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [North Sub] Breaker 1242 status OPENED at 10:12 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: alerts arrive through the night and each goes to the right person. 10:12 PM, to On-call line crew lead: "Welco: [North Sub] Breaker 1242 status OPENED at 10:12 PM. Reply STOP to opt out." 2:03 AM, to On-call substation tech: "Welco: [East Sub] AC voltage loss on phase B, HIGH alarm at 2:03 AM. Reply STOP to opt out." 4:26 AM, to On-call plant electrician: "Welco: [Peaking Plant] Battery charger 2 FAIL, DC bus 121 V at 4:26 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

What a utility without a night dispatcher gets

Each breaker and station alarm reaches the right crew member's phone as an SMS text. Welco reads the alarm email your master station already sends, so dispatch can stay dark at night.

  • The crew lead knows which breaker

    The text carries the station, the breaker number and OPENED or CLOSED, so the lead can decide on a truck roll from home.

  • Station alarms find the relay tech

    Alert rules send battery charger, DC and AC loss alarms to the substation tech, while feeder trips stay with the line crew.

  • A storm doesn't bury the phone

    When a storm opens a dozen breakers, the alarm burst limit keeps the crew lead down to a handful of texts.

  • The SCADA network stays sealed

    Welco only receives the email your QEI master station sends out. There is no driver, no protocol and no inbound path.

A battery charger failure at an unmanned substation

A small municipal utility with no night dispatcher. This week, one line crew lead and one relay tech take calls from home.

  1. Evening rules switch on

    From 5 PM, on-call routing sends substation alarms to the relay tech and feeder alarms to the crew lead.

  2. The RTU reports a charger fault

    EAST SUB 2026-10-14 01:14:06 POINT: BC-1 CHARGER FAIL DC BUS 118.6 V PRIORITY: 1

  3. The relay tech gets the station and the voltage

    Welco: [East Sub] Charger BC-1 FAIL, station battery 118.6 VDC and falling at 1:14 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

  4. The tech replies from home

    On my way to East Sub, there in 25 min

  5. The reply reaches the SCADA mailbox

    Welco turns text replies into email to the alarm's sender, so the superintendent sees who went out.

    Reply from the relay tech's phone: On my way to East Sub, there in 25 min

  6. The morning meeting starts with the record

    The superintendent opens the delivery report and the reply thread, then books the charger repair.

The times are an example only, and mobile networks control how fast a text lands. The point stays in alarm at the master station until someone clears it there.

How to set up utility alarm SMS in an afternoon

Your SCADA engineer, or whoever maintains the master station, can do it. On the SCADA side it is one more email recipient.

  1. Sign up and verify the utility

    Tell us about the utility and the alarms you'll send. We verify each business, so your dedicated alert number only ever carries your alarms.

  2. Invite crew leads and techs

    Each person types their own mobile on the invite and confirms with YES. Anyone on the list can leave by replying STOP.

  3. Add Welco to the priority 1 email

    Add your Welco address, approve the sender and trip a test point. If SCADA mail leaves through Microsoft 365, approve that address. Test mode previews every text first.

Send the next breaker trip to the crew on call

Sign up, verify your utility and approve your master station's email address.

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

Text me my SCADA alarmsBook a demo

Which utility SCADA and station systems can send alarm texts?

Welco needs no driver or protocol, only the alarm email. It covers PI System and historian limits at plants and Wonderware InTouch alarm texts from plant HMIs. Station controllers can send PLC alarm texts, and a VTScada alarm roster can list Welco as a contact.

Substation and plant alarms crews act on

These are masked examples. The same gap shows up at water and wastewater plants, oil and gas field sites and other industries Welco serves.

  • Relay: Welco: [South Sub] Relay 21-L3 TRIP, feeder 4 lockout at 9:47 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • RTU: Welco: [Pine Sub] RTU comm FAIL, no poll from master for 10 min at 12:08 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Station service: Welco: [North Sub] Station service AC LOSS, on battery at 3:19 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

A phone showing these alert texts: Relay, "Welco: [South Sub] Relay 21-L3 TRIP, feeder 4 lockout at 9:47 PM. Reply STOP to opt out."; RTU, "Welco: [Pine Sub] RTU comm FAIL, no poll from master for 10 min at 12:08 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Station service, "Welco: [North Sub] Station service AC LOSS, on battery at 3:19 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

Which substation and plant alarms should text a crew member?

Text the points that drop customers or leave a station running on battery. Planned switching and low-priority points can stay in email for the morning.

Points worth a text at night

  • An unplanned breaker opening or a recloser going to lockout.
  • Battery charger failure or a low DC bus at a station.
  • Loss of station service AC.
  • An RTU that stops answering the master station.
  • Transformer high temperature or low oil level.
  • A plant generator that fails to start or transfer.

Points to leave in email

Breaker operations during tagged, planned switching. Analog values creeping toward a limit, and maintenance counters. These matter, but none needs a truck before daylight.

Plan the storm night before it comes

Storms open breakers faster than anyone can read them. Set a burst limit and put feeder lockouts in their own rule. The guide to taming alarm floods walks through the settings.

A breaker alarm from utility SCADA, as a text

Utility SCADA emails often put the station, the date and the point name on separate lines. Welco folds them into a single line a crew lead can read at a glance.

Alert email from scada@utility.example.org, subject “QEI Alarm: WEST SUB”. Welco trims it to one text of 85 characters: “Welco: [West Sub] 52-T2 low side breaker OPENED at 11:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [West Sub] 52-T2 low side breaker OPENED at 11:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

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Animation: the alert email "QEI Alarm: WEST SUB" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [West Sub] 52-T2 low side breaker OPENED at 11:41 PM. Reply STOP to opt out."

An alert rule can text priority 1 points and leave lower priorities in email.

Night alarms at a small utility, then and now

The old way

  • The master station shows the trip on a screen in an empty dispatch room.
  • The first word of an outage is a customer calling the after-hours line.
  • A page that only says ALARM sends the lineman to the wrong substation.
  • Every status change rings the same phone, planned or not.

With Welco

  • Station, point and state on the crew lead's lock screen.
  • Feeder trips to the line crew, DC and AC alarms to the relay tech.
  • Priority 1 points by text, everything else left in email.
  • A morning record of each text, each phone and each reply.

Frequently asked questions

Can Welco send outage notices to our utility customers?

No. Welco is only for alarms sent to your own staff, who confirmed their phones first. Outage notices to the public need a different kind of service. Welco's job starts and ends with the crews who keep the system running.

We have no night dispatcher. Who sees a breaker alarm at 2 AM?

Whoever you put on call. Welco texts the alarm straight to that person's phone, based on the time of day and the kind of alarm. Many small utilities send line alarms to the line crew lead and station alarms to the substation tech.

Does Welco connect to our SCADA or EMS network?

No. Welco never reaches into your control network. Your SCADA sends an email out through your normal mail server, and only approved senders can trigger a text. Your firewall rules stay as they are.

Will planned switching send our crews a pile of breaker texts?

It can, if your SCADA reports planned and unplanned operations the same way. If planned work carries a tag or a different priority, a rule can skip it. Otherwise, warn the crew before switching starts. Many utilities text only priority 1 points to keep the noise down.

What does a lineman see, and what happens if they reply?

A normal text with the station, the point and the state, on any mobile phone with no app. Each person confirms their own number before alarms start. A reply arrives as an email at the alarm's sender address and leaves the point in alarm at the master station.

What does it cost, and do our current alarm emails change?

With no per-user fees, the whole line department can be on the list. Alarms use message credits from a plan on the plans page, after a 7-day trial with 15 credits. The card that verifies the utility is not charged before you approve a plan. Every current recipient keeps getting the alarm email, since Welco is added beside them.

Can Welco stand in for the voice dialer on our SCADA?

For crews who only need the alarm in writing, it can. Welco places no voice calls and won't pass an unanswered alarm to a second person. Keep the dialer if your callout policy needs a ringing phone, and see the WIN-911 alternative for the trade-offs.

Put the next breaker alarm in your crew lead's pocket

Approve your SCADA's email address and add the on-call phones.

Text me my SCADA alarmsBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing