Adding Assets

The following article explains how to add or update assets that are operational or in development on Piclo.

If you're adding or editing planned assets, please see Adding and Editing Planned Assets.

By adding assets, you will be able to:

• identify which assets are eligible for a competition (see asset qualification for further details).
• Get notified via email when a competition appears in your assets' area.
• Notify the System Operators in the area of your asset (even if it doesn't qualify for a current competition).

Downloading the Asset Template

1. Go to the Manage > Assets
2. To upload new assets, download the latest template by selecting "download latest template"

Input Asset Data

1. Open the file you downloaded, and read the "READ ME" section on tab one before modifying the spreadsheet.

2. Fill in all the required details (one row per asset) and/or edit any assets that require editing, and save the file as xlsx.

   a. Each column has a description of the data required, the type of data required, and whether the field is Required or Optional.

   b. Only a small number of fields are Required. Assets with only the required fields populated can become eligible for competitions.

   c. To qualify for competitions, System Operators may require you to complete all Optional fields on the template. Please complete this information as soon as possible, if you intend to participate in System Operator competitions.

   d. Please see the asset status, type and capacity help article for guidance on these three fields.

Here is a helpful walkthrough:

Upload Asset File

When you are complete with the spreadsheet, return to your Piclo account and upload your file via the ‘choose file’ button.

Once the file has finished processing (this can take a few minutes), a new row will appear in the file history table. Each row in the ‘Row Details’ section corresponds to an asset in your original file, and the errors from each uploaded row can be seen by expanding the table with the 'View' button.

When a file is uploaded with errors, a red message appears. Click the link "Download asset errors summary" to download a file containing only the rows containing assets with errors, which is useful for debugging large amounts of assets. You can re-upload the same errors file, in the same way as the regular Asset Upload template any number of times, until you have corrected the errors.

The number of successfully created assets is counted in the 'Created' column. These automatically appear on the map after upload.

Troubleshooting Errors

• If fewer assets appear on the map than expected, you may have some assets which errored, and did not upload.
  • Use the File History table to see how many errors occurred, and where.
  • Press 'View' to expand the table and see what caused an error in each row of your original file.
  • Alternatively, download the Asset Errors Summary file, which appears in the red box when errors are created, and re-upload your correct Asset Errors Summary file in the same way as the regular Asset Upload file.
  • Note - the row numbers in the File History table correspond to your original file, not your errors file.
• If errors persist or it’s not clear what the solution is, do contact support@piclo.energy for help. 

Top Tips for Uploading

• Ensure that you have location information.
  • If you do not have the postcode, the address with the latitude and longitude can be used (located in columns AE to AG).
  • If your asset does not appear on the map, try zooming out to the maximum distance. Your asset may have uploaded latitude and longitude values in the wrong columns, and your assets may be uploaded in the sea or another country.
• Deleting a row in your file, will not delete the asset(s) within the Piclo platform, instead, you need to archive your asset.
  • Archive your asset by re-uploading it with an Archived status in Column E of the Asset Upload template.
• If you want to change the asset ref of an asset, please copy the old asset ref name into column AH, ‘previous asset ref’.
  • Then type the new name into column C, ‘asset ref’.
  • Each asset ref must be unique and will cause an error should the same asset ref be used for two assets, even if one of those assets is archived.
• Only 5,000 rows of assets can be uploaded in a single file.
  • For larger data sets, please use Piclo's Assets API or split your dataset into multiple files with fewer rows.

Here is a helpful walkthrough: