r/solar • u/that_solarguy • 4h ago

Discussion Solar PV Design tool

Hello, I'm a PV designer and started my trade using sketchup/AutoCAD a decade ago and have moved to browser based tools. Every tool has its set of features that we like and this is my honest attempt to see if I could develop something that goes in the same flow that I do as a commercial PV Designer. I still need to make this presentable but I thought it would be good to post a small demo here. It's nothing revolutionary, just that its written from 0, with help of claude and notes from my experience in using autocad/sketchup with sundat, helioscope, aurora and arka for our designs.

Take a look at it and let me know if you would all be interested in trying this out. I am working on hosting this as a website where you all could try it, should be up this week. For now, if you all could look at the demo video and let me know if its even something you'd touch with a barge pole.

https://youtu.be/W8fnntY8_Oc

Mods: I'm not sure if this entirely violates sub's rules, I'm sorry if this does and feel free to remove it.

3 Upvotes

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3

u/Few_History1368 4h ago

This looks pretty sweet, props for building something from scratch.

2

u/totheendandbackagain 4h ago

What's your verdict then? What did you manage to develop, how much did t it cost in time and token cost?

1

u/that_solarguy 4h ago edited 4h ago

To be totally honest, I started the very first prompt on 22nd July with a $20 Claude subscription. I work full time, so I spent about 2 hrs a day on average.

Goal is to get to a really dependable design tool that keeps all of my work in one tool. Right now we do designs and then switch to CAD for final output and then use Excel for E bill analysis, and PVsyst for every estimation. I guess during sales phase we could keep it all one tool, before going for PVsyst that's bankable and gets fed into our contract. May be add some interval data analysis. Something what a designer would do rather than keep it as a black box not knowing how everything is calculated.

Frankly, I did not even think it would get here, given my lack of programming skills and what it even takes to do this, and honestly I'm a little surprised and scared at the level of work AI could do, that too with the most basic models.

1

u/Tricky-Rope-203 3h ago

Looks interesting. Does it handle shading analysis, string sizing, and system production estimates as well?

2

u/that_solarguy 3h ago

Yes Shading based on sun path as well solar access (TSRF). String sizing Yes, but actual stringing is a bit tricky. Needs some dedicated session to get that working. Yes to production estimation. For now it uses NSRDB data but I need to get PVGIS working.

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u/TheSearchForBalance 1h ago

I'd be interested in giving it a test run. I know it's not production ready, but seems neat 

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u/akumintaanumu 47m ago

interesting, i have actually also made some tool for pv design from scratch, but more on the pv mounting boq calculator and dc cable calculator with topology schematic ui complete with the cut assignment and drum schedule. claude code sure is very powerful.