How Solar Design Lab works

Solar installers, EPC firms and solar designers who produce permit plan sets. If you are a homeowner planning a system, start with our homeowner page.

Solar Design Lab brings the site layout, single-line diagram, conductor and equipment schedules, structural details and jurisdiction sheets into one plan set. Your project and permitting authority determine which sheets are required.

Creating an account and starting your first project costs nothing. Additional projects and final downloads are priced separately: the pricing page previews the planned offers, and the options available to you are shown in your account after you sign in. Engineering services are quoted separately for each project.

A self-designed plan set is ready when your design is. For an engineer-prepared project, delivery is confirmed in the quote, before any work begins.

Not automatically. Use your own engineer, or request review and stamping through Solar Design Lab. A professional engineer’s stamp is a separate service; generating a plan set does not automatically include one.

No. Your permitting authority reviews and approves the permit. Many jurisdictions require stamped structural or electrical documents for residential solar, so check your jurisdiction’s submittal requirements before you choose the self-designed path.

Yes. Every project is created in an account, so your work is saved and you can come back to it. Both paths start the same way.

Yes. The path is a project setting, and you can change it later without losing your work. A self-designed project can also be sent to our engineers with Request engineering, from the Review step or the plan set. The engineer reviews and reworks the design as needed; sending a finished design does not mean it will be stamped as drawn.

The equipment directory lists the inverters, batteries, gateways, rails and roof attachments available in the designer, from a library of more than 22,000 equipment models. Combinations are checked in your design; confirm installation limits against the manufacturer’s instructions for your site.

The project address, the panel, inverter and mounting products, and the electrical ratings and roof details you can verify. You can start with less and fill in the rest as you go.

Wire sizing, overcurrent protection and grounding are calculated from your design as it changes, and voltage drop is calculated once a circuit has a length. The connection to the service and the roof mounting are checked as well. The results are only as good as the information entered, and a design with no findings still needs your review.

Yes. Export a DXF from Aurora and import it into the roof layout. Check the imported roof planes, pitch and direction against the site before you continue.

No. The request needs the project details, site photos or a folder link, and whether anything unusual applies. For technical fields, enter what you can verify and leave the rest for the engineer. A guessed value is harder to catch than a blank one.

Readable equipment labels, with enough of the surroundings to show where each piece of equipment is. Photos inside electrical equipment should be taken by a qualified installer or electrician.

Engineering is quoted for each project after our team reviews your request, and scope, price and delivery are confirmed before any work begins. Any credit for the preparation you did appears in your quote; it is not guaranteed by filling in every field.