PVX.AI

Utility-Scale Solar Design

Stop redesigning.

Design for the site you will actually build.

The Gap

It looks finished on screen. Then it meets the ground.

Most CAD solar tools hand you a drawing. Construction needs a design that survives real dirt.

A clean layout meeting real sloped terrain

What It Costs

The redraw is most of your overrun.

Rework born at the desk gets paid for in the field: change orders, crew standby, slipped COD.

$50K-$2.5M

Earthwork alone can swing this much on a single 200 MW project.

~80%

of a project's cost is locked in during early design, before construction starts.

Sources: earthwork range from Castillo Engineering, PV Tech (2025); the 80% reflects the standard 80/20 design-cost principle.

A Better Sequence

Start with terrain. End with cost.

One model. One order of operations.

01

Terrain

Surface, slope, drainage, hardness.

02

Construct

Pile limits, grading depth, cable routes.

03

Cost

Earthwork, BOS, annual loss.

Terrain

Your site isn't flat. Design like it.

Most layout tools start on a flat plane and meet the real terrain later, on site. PVX imports the actual surface first, so slope and elevation shape the layout while it can still change cheaply.

Real elevation and slope surface

Grading

Grading that actually builds.

Grading is two jobs, not one. Smoothing makes the whole site a continuous surface a grader can cut; adapt-to-pile then fits each rack where the grade still fights it, filling the dips under a long table. PVX does both, so the plan is actually buildable.

$727,105 saved on a hard-rock site in a recent case study by our team, just by optimizing the grading approach.

Smoothing

Section view: smoothing levels the ground into a continuous buildable grade
A continuous surface a grader can cut.

Adapt to pile

Section view: adapt-to-pile fits racks to the natural slope with minimal earthwork
Racks fit the natural grade, rack by rack.

Civil Risk

Find pile refusals and flood paths first.

Drainage and soil hardness should shape the layout before it is approved, while the design is still editable.

Drainage

Drainage flow paths across the site
Read the flood paths before any ground is broken.

Soil hardness

Soil hardness map across the site
See pile-driving risk while the layout is still editable.

Electrical

Trench routes you don't redraw by hand.

Most CAD solar tools route trenches through paths no crew can dig, then leave you fixing them cable by cable. PVX routes on your real road corridors and around your exclusion zones, so the cable plan is buildable as drawn.

In a recent study by our team, optimizing the cable routing saved $429,936 on a 130 MW solar project.
Routes follow your roads, avoid your no-go zones
Voltage drop on every string, not an average (IEC 62548)
No manual rerouting. Cables update automatically as you move devices around.
Terrain-following cable routing

Performance

Geometry is yield.

Spacing, shading, cable length, and annual loss move together.

46%

In a recent study by our team, shading loss swung this much between layout options.

997 MWh

The energy a project can win or lose every year, on layout alone.

Dynamic shading

Dynamic shading loss pattern across the terrain

See where geometry drives loss across the terrain.

Autodesign

All of it. Automatically. One data model.

PVX generates the full electrical design (terrain fit, string sizing, cabling, voltage drop, export) on one data model. No file is passed by hand, so nothing gets re-keyed and nothing drifts.

3-4 weeks to a few-hour loop
No spreadsheet passed by hand
Built to IEC / IEEE code
Full layout generated on real terrain

Scale

1.5 GW+

handled in a single project model.

No more choking. Just efficiency.

Most tools crawl or crash on utility-scale sites, so teams chop the project into separate files and lose one shared source of truth. PVX keeps the entire site live and responsive, so you design at full scale instead of fighting your machine.

1 model

Whole site in one file

No crashes

Even at gigawatt scale

AI Assist

An AI copilot inside your AutoCAD.

Ask the built-in assistant to run the design steps for you. It drives the same pipeline you would, so new hires get productive fast and seniors stop answering the same setup questions.

The PVX.AI assistant inside AutoCAD running an auto-design from a chat conversation

PVX.View

The whole project. In a browser. No AutoCAD.

You do all the design in AutoCAD with PVX.Cad, then export to PVX.View. The live model opens in any browser and renders beautifully on phones and desktops alike, so developers, lenders, and managers can review the design, its financials, and yield without ever touching CAD.

PVX.View browser model with financials and yield

Trusted

Trusted where mistakes are expensive.

Used by solar developers, EPCs, and engineering teams that need the design to survive contact with terrain.

Enerjisa
Guris
Masdar
Citus Power
ERL
Isotec
Schletter
Smart
PVX.AI

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