Solar Structure Design Software - How To Choose The Right Software?
What is Solar Structure Design Software?
Solar energy is a flexible form of energy that may be used to heat, cool, and illuminate homes and businesses. In one hour, more energy from the sun falls on the earth than everyone on the globe consumes in a year. In a variety of methods, sunlight is transformed into usable energy for structures. The most prevalent solar technologies for houses and businesses include solar photovoltaics for energy, passive solar design for space heating and cooling, and solar water heating.
Solar design is used by businesses and industries to diversify their energy sources, enhance efficiency, and save money for their solar projects. Solar photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies are used by energy producers and utilities to generate electricity on a large scale to power cities and small towns.
With diverse software and tools, a rising number of solar energy installers are developing and implementing small-scale solar power production systems for industrial plants, commercial buildings, and even residential properties. With today's technology, a solar installer may have access to solar design software to assist with the community's selling of solar panels. The flexibility to work from home, the office, or on the road is one of the most crucial characteristics of solar design software. The flexibility to log in from anywhere at any time of day is also a benefit of having access to many devices. Laptops, tablets, cellphones, and desktop computers all serve as excellent reference tools while meeting with prospective customers. Along with other gadgets, the appropriate form of solar design software is an essential resource tool for completing the sale of solar panels.
What Is the Purpose of Solar Structure Design Software?
Solar structure design software offers simple automation of solar system design, allowing solar enterprises to provide their customers with rapid and accurate estimates. Some software enables users to simulate both the configuration of a future solar system and its performance. This simplifies and streamlines the engineering and sales processes, which is especially significant for large-scale solar facilities and difficult topographies.
The app user provides the desired parameters, such as producing capacity and kinds of goods to be utilized, and the system simulates the recommended configuration, at the same time outlining the possible obstacles. This enables solar enterprises to best use any sort of terrain, cut costs, and produce more sales with detailed 3D presentations.
The software's vast data and analytic capabilities enable project developers and designers to take advantage of economies of scale and maximize their return on investment.
Solar structure design software always strives to balance the four elements listed below to develop a superior engineering design:
1. Project Cost as Low as Possible
2. Maximum Energy Generation
3. Maximum Stability and Strength of the Structure
4. Utilization of Land Area to the Maximum Extent Possible
What are the essential characteristics that Solar Structure Design Software should have?
Use of Satellite Imaging:
Your software should provide you with precise satellite photos and geographic data. This will help you calculate your solar system's performance, anticipate energy production, and analyze shadowing. Depending on how a solar power system is configured, you'll have an easier time evaluating how the sun and natural environmental components of a certain place will affect it. Normal weather conditions and the time of year may have an impact on a system, so you'll want to be able to access data at various points throughout the year to guarantee that your ideas will stand up no matter what season it is or what kind of weather a customer may face.
Fast and Accurate Simulation Capability:
The performance capabilities and accuracy of its simulation technologies are critical variables to consider while selecting solar design software. You also want it to be thorough so that when creating a solar energy system for your customers, every potential factor is taken into account. To meet their expectations, you must first discover what they anticipate from the system before beginning work on the installation. They'll want to know about their system's costs, energy output, and power usage. It's critical to be able to examine this quickly enough to send out a proposal while also verifying the quality of the data, so any software you employ must be both swift and exact.
Frequency of software updates:
You don't want to buy software that will quickly become obsolete owing to the developer's decision to discontinue support. Software with a higher frequency of updates has a longer life cycle than software with a lower frequency of updates. You always want your apps to use the most up-to-date technology available, so stay on top of any changes that are released after you've picked one. Because solar design technology is always changing, you will be able to give your customers better and more accurate suggestions.
Integration with Other Applications:
Any solar design software you purchase should be compatible with other solar programs, such as financial and energy management software. This allows you to swiftly update any changes that impact these other project components, ensuring that no departments are left in the dark and consumers are not misled. Building a solar energy system is a difficult process, and even the smallest mistake may cause a project to fail. To maintain the integrity of your ideas and subsequent installations, make sure you select software that may be used in conjunction with others.
Dedicated Resource Management:
Any solar design software you purchase should be compatible with other solar programs, such as financial and energy management software. This allows you to swiftly update any changes that impact these other project components, ensuring that no departments are left in the dark and consumers are not misled. Building a solar energy system is a difficult process, and even the smallest mistake may cause a project to fail. To maintain the integrity of your ideas and subsequent installations, make sure you select software that may be used in conjunction with others.
What are the criteria for a good Rooftop Solar Structure Design?
The Building Structure's Age: The age of the building structure is a critical consideration. The smaller the storage capacity of the solar panels, the older the building structure. Solar firms take these safeguards to assure the reliability of their clients' solar systems.
Structure Type: The rooftop solar PV design will need the appropriate components to effectively attach the panels and maintain stability, depending on the kind of roof or structure. Third, some of the most frequent solar structure designs for solar installation are RCC roofs, metal sheets, and ground-mounted structures, to mention a few. Rooftop solar installation over asbestos sheets is typically discouraged owing to the inherent danger of strength and support deterioration as it ages.
Structure Area: There must be a check for shade and an interruption-free space, as well as a spot to put the inverter and battery backup, junction box, and so on. Furthermore, this helps in the creation of a solar design layout to understand what components may be put where and whether the structure can withstand the load of the solar PV system.
Access to the Roof: Solar engineering specialists must inspect all rooftop solar installations to ensure adequate access to the roof. This assures optimum rooftop accessibility, not only to make installation activities safer and faster for you but also to enable simple access for subsequent maintenance and repair work. Furthermore, the designers of the solar structure should prepare for pathways and plant designs between the solar panel rows to guarantee the safety of the installation and maintenance workers. When operating at a high height, railings around the borders of the roof area are essential to prevent disasters.
Top 5 Solar Structure Design Software:
ARKA 360
ARKA 360 is a SaaS and AI cloud-based software for solar design and sales growth. It specializes in developing software for solar installers and government bodies to create preliminary sales quotations and optimize system designs. ARKA 360 was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in New Delhi.
Features:
AI-Assisted Faster Design Creation: Create designs that are simple, accurate, and quick. View your design in 3D or 2D. Discover numerous iterations and choose the best solution depending on your customer's specifications.
Smarter Energy Profiling & Modeling: Generate detailed electrical diagrams for utility-scale or domestic projects in minutes. Choose from a choice of mounting templates and panel tilt values. Draw in barriers of any shape using the polygon tool and more.
Accurate Simulations and Shading Analysis: Easily predict your monthly, quarterly, and annual power production and losses. Simulate shading patterns for any day of the year and generate reliable heat maps.
Sales Proposals and Commercial Reports: Attract clients with thorough yet exhaustive proposals. Focus on the key growth metrics and provide multiple financial solutions in a concise manner. View your Total Savings, Payback Period, and Internal Return Rate, in one single view.
CAD Layout and SLDs: Fabricate single-line diagrams and export them as DXF files for easy construction plans.
Availability: ARKA 360 is an online Software as a Service (SaaS) and can be used on any modern browser using computers, laptops, or even mobile phones.
Website: https://www.arka360.com/
Aurora Solar
Aurora Solar develops cloud-based software that enables solar PV engineering design, provides workflow management functionality, and facilitates sales and customer acquisition for solar installers and financiers. Christopher Hopper and Samuel Adeyemo founded Aurora Solar in 2013. It has its headquarters inSan Francisco, California.
Features:
Simple and Efficient Design Interface: Users can perform detailed shading analysis and shade measurement directly in the application, drag and drop components to create system designs, and generate single line diagrams automatically. All designs are automatically checked for electrical constraints, industry best practices, and NEC rule compliance.
Easy and Automated Financial Report: It enables users to quickly determine a project's viability and easily model many of the most common financing structures. Financial models consider the project's energy profile and calculate accurate and dynamic visualizations of financial information such as cash flows, payback periods, LCOE, and bill savings.
Compelling Sales Proposals: Using the project and design data already created in Aurora, sales proposals automatically pull in the custom project and client data, 3D visuals, and financial analysis into any number of clean and professional templates, guaranteeing a consistent, yet customized experience for all clients.
Availability: Aurora Solar is an online SaaS company that uses aerial imagery to assess solar installation projects.
Website: https://www.aurorasolar.com/
HelioScope
HelioScope is a popular platform in the solar industry for designing and selling high-performance solar arrays. Designers and engineers will find it simple to use and understand. It has a plethora of features that are essential for anyone interested in solar energy. It's no surprise that many users have used this software to design solar PV systems.
Features:
HelioScope has a number of useful features as an online solar design tool. This includes the following items, which are listed below,
- Solar Panels Layout
- Shading Analysis
- Single Line Diagram Export
- 45,000 Component Library
- Quick Design Revision
- Google Maps Integration
- PAN File Support
- Unlimited Designs
- API
- Computer-Aided Drawing (CAD) Tools
- Solar Energy Production Estimates
- System Energy Loss Chart
- 3D Design
- Voltage Drop Calculation
- One-Click Sharing
- SketchUp Shading Integration
- Wiring Selection
- NSRDB/NREL Meteo Integration
- Up to 5 MW Systems
Availability: HelioScope is accessible through any modern browser. Since it is web-based, users can create solar PV designs using their computers, laptops, or even mobile phones.
Website: https://www.helioscope.com/
PVsyst
PVsyst is a PC software package for studying, sizing, and analyzing data from complete PV systems. It covers grid-connected, stand-alone, pumping, and DC-grid (public transportation) PV systems, as well as extensive meteo and PV system component databases and general solar energy tools. This software is designed for architects, engineers, and researchers. It is also extremely beneficial for educational training. PVsyst focuses on comprehensive and precise PV system analysis using a comprehensive set of tools.
Features:
PVSyst software has the following features:
- System designing
- System sizing
- Creating a shading scene
- It generates simulations and outcomes.
- Model storage systems
- Some additional features include importing data and components and getting weather data from meteonorm.
- Simulate the ageing effect of solar modules, etc.
Availability: You need to download the software from its official website and in order to use full PVsyst capabilities you have to buy a license, you can also renew subscriptions for existing licenses on their online shop.
Website: https://www.pvsyst.com/
Open Solar
OpenSolar is the world's first free, end-to-end solar design and sales application, providing solar professionals with a highly sophisticated, yet simple-to-use software tool that meets all of their needs, from marketing and lead management to solar system design, sales, installation, and service.
Features:
3D Design, Leading Accuracy: The fastest, simplest, and most accurate 3D design tool available, making your proposals reliable and bankable from the office and in the field.
Integrated Finance Partners: Effortless selection and integration of your chosen finance providers with in-app real-time approvals, making selling easier than ever.
Proposals that Sell: Fully customizable, interactive proposals online or as a PDF. 24% sale conversion drawn from experience selling 10,000's of systems, face-to-face and over the phone.
Free of Charge: All of this is available for free to all users indefinitely.
Open API: Connect your existing CRM and business tools to our industry-leading platform. Work in the manner which you prefer.
Availability: It is a cloud-based app with a mobile-friendly operating environment that allows you to manage your business from any device in the office or in the field.
Website: https://www.opensolar.com/
Conclusion:
Solar structure design software is a critical tool for solar power deployment, particularly in the early days of the industry when solar PV, batteries, energy efficiency, and electric cars were all gaining popularity. Today, more than ever, the solar sector needs a solution, and software companies must be at the forefront of offering the most up-to-date solutions to the solar energy dilemma. Consider the prevalence of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud computing. Surprisingly, lengthy searches for features as critical to post-installation customer assistance as operations and maintenance (O&M) have revealed few results. This demonstrates the potential for development and improvement in the solar software business.