A CADDEZ product

SolarCAD

Utility-scale solar layout, electrical design and bill of quantities — in the browser. From a DXF boundary to a construction-ready layout, cable schedule and BOQ. No installation, no CAD seat, no plugin to maintain.

Run it on your site → How it works

Discipline: PV · ground mount
Input: DXF boundary
Output: DXF, schedules, BOQ
Runs on: Any browser

#CAD 01 The problem

Laid out by hand it takes a week. Changed once, it takes another.

Every step below is real work someone in a drawing office does today, and almost all of it has to be repeated when an input upstream moves.

Drawing it by hand

In SolarCAD

Set out tables row by row against boundary, roads and setbacks

Fill Boundary places the full array against the real parcel geometry

Group tables into inverter stations, count, rebalance, renumber

Stations packed to inverter rating, tagged consistently across the 3D view, the DXF and the BOQ

Draw SCB and MV routing polyline by polyline through the plant

Cable routed along shared trench corridors, lengths measured on the model

Measure every run, type lengths into a spreadsheet, size by current and drop, iterate

Every run sized automatically, with drop, loss and sizing basis stated per circuit

Re-total quantities by hand for the BOQ and the pile schedule

BOQ and pile setting-out generated from the built layout, not estimated

Any change to pitch, station rating or boundary — start most of it again

Change the input, re-run, compare

#CAD 02 Workflow

One model. Layout, cabling and quantities together.

Six steps, in order. Each one feeds the next, which is why changing an early input re-resolves everything downstream rather than orphaning it.

Import

Parcel as DXF. The coordinate system is read from GEODATA and verified against a basemap, so you can see the site landed where it should before anything is drawn.

Fill

The full array set out against real parcel geometry — boundary, roads, setbacks and terrain, not an idealised rectangle.

Group

Tables packed into inverter stations to rating, then tagged consistently so the same table carries the same reference in the 3D view, the DXF and the BOQ.

Route

SCB and MV cable routed along shared trench corridors, with run lengths measured on the model rather than estimated from a factor.

Size

Every run sized automatically, with voltage drop, loss and the sizing basis stated for each circuit — by current, by parallel set, or at minimum section.

Export

DXF, cable schedule, pile setting-out sheet and BOQ — all generated from the layout that was actually built.

#CAD 03 Worked example

Because re-running is cheap, you can test topologies instead of committing to one.

The same 211.76 MWp site, the same 19 inverter stations, the same 4,870 tables — designed once radially, then once as a looped RMU ring. Both runs took about twenty minutes.

211.76 MWp DC · 131.66 ha · 33 kV aluminium	Radial	Looped RMU	Change
MV feeder panels	19	6	−13
MV cable	22.1 km	11.4 km	−10.8 km
MV loss	631.5 kW	412.3 kW	−219 kW
Worst voltage drop	0.75%	0.29%	−0.46 pt

Three-dimensional view of the completed layout, with tables colour-coded by inverter station and roads, trenches and medium-voltage routing resolved against the parcel boundary. — The DC side is identical across both runs — 2,046 kW loss, 158 SCBs, 27.57 km of SCB-to-station cable — so the difference is topology alone.

#CAD 04 Output

Every number can be checked, not just trusted.

The cable schedule exports circuit by circuit with the sizing basis stated for each run. The feeder summary states why each feeder terminated where it did — station count, feeder MW, direction, or last station — so a reviewer can follow the logic rather than take the total on faith.

Export

DXF

Tables, roads, trenches, station numbers and field tags on separate layers, ready to drop into your own drawing set.

Export

Cable schedule

DC and MV, with sizing basis, voltage drop and loss stated for every run.

Export

Pile setting-out

Latitude and longitude, ground level, reveal and ordered pile length — ready for the survey team.

#CAD 05 Who builds it

Built by a CAD automation company, not a software startup.

CADDEZ has spent 5 years on AutoCAD-based drafting automation and PEB detailing for steel fabricators, manufacturers and EPC teams across the World.

That is time spent inside the drawing workflows utility-scale solar depends on — and building the automation that removes the repetitive parts of them. SolarCAD is that experience applied to one problem, end to end.

Evaluation

Try it on your own site.

Send a parcel from your pipeline and we will run it with you on a call. You keep the DXF, the cable schedule and the pile setting-out sheet either way — the point is for you to judge it on your own geometry rather than our demo site.

info@caddez.com → Sign in to SolarCAD →