Must-Have Design Software Features
Design Special Features
1. LIDAR
LIDAR is one of the most powerful advancements in solar design so far. LIDAR data allows you to know the heights of buildings, trees, and obstructions with pinpoint accuracy. This allows you to complete site audits remotely and eliminate costly in-person visits while knowing that your measurements will be as close as possible to real-world measurements.
2. Assisted Solar Design
Some solar software solutions can automatically place modules to fill out the entire area available, or up to a maximum system size. When the racking product changes, or when the target ground coverage ratio changes, the software should allow you to easily update existing values in your design. These changes should automatically update the number of modules and recalculate the new energy yield, speeding up your system design time.
3. Design for New Construction
Being able to model a solar system on a site that hasn’t been built yet can give you a huge edge over your competition and help you expand your business. Some solar software allows you to design an accurate system with just a blueprint or site imagery of the new building. Be sure to ask your solar software vendor if they have this functionality and how it works.
4. Auto-stringing
Auto-stringing allows your solar software to connect the panels in your design automatically. Some solar software can even do intelligent stringing by using shading data to maximize the efficiency of the system and decrease loss due to shading. Any adjustments made to the desired string length should not only make real-time updates to the design but to the single-line diagram as well. As an added bonus, some software providers that offer autostringing can also automatically calculate conductor lengths and power losses based on conductor length and type/size.
5. Consumption Modeling
Oftentimes, the billing information may be incomplete. This can make accurately sizing a system difficult. Some solar software can fix this problem by modeling the annual consumption of the customer from a single energy bill using predictive algorithms based on consumption profiles for the specific location and building type. This not only helps with accuracy but also increases the potential customers you can service and speeds up your sales process.
6. On-demand Modeling Service
Every solar installer understands the seasonal nature of the solar business. To help with peak times in your business, some solar software companies provide on-demand modeling services. This means you can have an expert model the project for you, allowing you to scale your capacity to meet increased demand without the need to hire and train new designers. Keep in mind that turnaround times (TAT) differ by vendor, so make sure to ask about TAT when choosing new software.
7. Global & Custom Weather Files
Global meteorological resources make sure your simulations are as accurate as possible no matter where in the world your project is located. When designing a system, your software should accurately simulate the energy output of each individual module throughout the year so that you can design for optimal efficiency. Some software supports custom weather files, too, giving you the flexibility to upload a weather file for a specific area.
Be sure to ask your solar software vendor which weather sources they use, how extensive their records are, how often they are updated, and if the software carries multiyear data to enable P90 analysis.
Next up...
DesignOps Bonus Features
Next, let's take a look at the bonus features that make top software solutions stand out from the rest.