PV Designer Software

Solmetric PV Designer Software

PV Designer software enables you to quickly and easily: draw a roof outline, specify set-backs and keep-out regions, incorporate SunEye shade measurements at specific locations on the roof, drag-and-drop modules, size strings, check inverter limits, and calculate the AC energy production for your system. It includes extensive world-wide databases of modules, inverters, and historical weather. You can easily try different design scenarios and compare their AC kW-hr outputs side-by-side to identify the best design. Results can be exported in a PDF format and printed or emailed to clients. The software is designed for residential and small commercial systems.
Example screen images are shown on the left of this page. More information can be found in the data sheet here. You can also watch the series of training videos part one, part two, and part three. Part four highlights the latest features available in revision 4.50, including arbitrary roof shapes and obstruction "no module zones".

NEW: Advanced weather data
PV Designer now also includes advanced weather data from Meteonorm as a selection. Weather data is enhanced both because more weather data sources are used, and because of the advanced processing used to interpolate data from these sources. Over 8,300 meteorological stations managed in global and regional databases have been combined and checked for their reliability. Usually, measurement data can only be used in the vicinity of a weather station. Elsewhere, the data has to be interpolated between different stations. The sophisticated interpolation models inside meteonorm allow a reliable calculation of solar radiation, temperature and additional parameters at any site in the world.

Who can benefit from PV Designer?
If you design residential and smaller commercial systems with either a single inverter or multiple inverters, PV Designer is the design tool of choice. The software is optimized for designing systems of around 15 kW or less, however larger systems up to 100kW can also be designed in PV Designer. The software is easy to learn and easy to use, yet enables detailed analysis traditionally only available in complicated engineering tools.

Do I need a SunEye to use PV Designer?
One of the key benefits of PV Designer is the ability to easily incorporate shade effects in your system design. In order to obtain the necessary shading data, you’ll want and need a Solmetric SunEye shade analysis tool. If you don’t already own one, find out more here.

However, to use PV Designer without shade measurements, you won’t need a SunEye. A ‘New Session’ can be created and you define the location without the need for a SunEye session.

• Define arbitrary (rectangular or non-rectangular) roof shapes
• Specify PV module and Inverter from integrated database
• Lay out modules on roof plane
• Designate strings
• Define set-backs and keep-out regions such as skylights
• Locate SunEye shade readings from SunEye 110 or 210
• Determine energy calculations accounting for partial shading
• View results in monthly or annual kWh
• Output pdf report or csv file for hourly time-of-use analysis

How do I try PV Designer?
Download the SunEye Desktop Software version 4.56 or later from the Software Downloads page. You’ll automatically get a free 30 day trial when you first select PV Designer from the Session menu.

To download the SunEye Desktop Software (version 4.60 or later) with PV Designer, visit the Downloads page.

How do I access PV Designer?
The PV Designer software is a licensed module within the Solmetric SunEye's Desktop Software. PV Designer is accessed through the Desktop Software. To operate, the PV Designer requires a SunEye session to be loaded and active. When the PV Designer is first run (from the Session menu of the SunEye Desktop Software), an option is presented to either purchase the software or to initiate a 30-day free trial.

Minimum system requirements:
• Operating System: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2 or later (Professional, Home, or Media Center)
• Processor Speed: 1 GHz minimum
• RAM: 1 GByte minimum, 2 GByte recommended
• Available Disc Space: 200 MB or more.
• MS Internet Explorer 7.0 or higher.
• Display resolution: 1280x1024 or greater. The software will function with lower resolution, such as 1024x800, although there may be some steps required to see all design information.
Systems that do not meet these requirements may not operate correctly.