Solar design & simulation · Shading & irradiance
17 of the 100 products we researched carry this capability, 16 of them at the depth we code as advanced. 3 explicitly do not offer it, which is a useful fact in its own right. For 6 more we searched the vendor’s own pages and found no statement either way.
Working out how much of the sun a given panel actually sees once trees, chimneys, parapets, neighbouring buildings and the horizon are accounted for — and what that costs in annual yield.
Verified against the vendor’s own pages.
Shading is the single largest source of the gap between a modelled yield and a metered one, and it is the number a customer will hold you to. It is also the capability with the widest quality spread in this dataset: the same two words cover a hand-drawn obstruction and a ray-traced irradiance model.
7 of the 17 products that carry it publish a price you can check before contacting sales.
Every phrase below appeared on a vendor’s own site during research and was mapped onto the
single canonical capability Shading analysis. The count is how many products used
that exact wording — which is why searching for any one of them finds only a fraction of
the market.
Depth is coded per capability, not on a universal scale, so “advanced” means something specific to this one feature and nothing at all across features.
Basic
Obstructions can be placed and they reduce the yield figure, but the reduction is derived from a simplified geometric model rather than a time-stepped irradiance calculation.
Advanced
Per-module, time-stepped shading with a published method — the tool can tell you which module loses what, at which hour, and why.
Not a ranking — no product on this site is scored. Ordered by the depth we could verify, then alphabetically.
Aurora Solar Inc.
Design & simulation · Web
Cloud residential solar design-and-sales platform that turns satellite/LIDAR imagery into a 3D roof model, a shaded production estimate and a signable proposal in one session.
DNV
Design & simulation · Desktop
DNV's Windows desktop yield-assessment tool for utility-scale PV — irregular terrain, 3D shade, sub-module electrical mismatch, sub-hourly and multi-year simulation, in-app scripting, and cloud-burst calculation — built on DNV's own continual-validation methodology.
EagleView Technologies
Imagery & remote survey · Web · iOS · Android
A property-imagery and measurement business that sells solar contractors per-property roof reports — geometry, pitch, azimuth, obstructions, shading, TSRF and Solar Access Values — plus an auto-generated PV design product on top of them.
Helios 3D (a product of STÖHR+SAUER CAD- und Computersystem GmbH)
German engineering software for utility-scale ground-mount PV that runs inside Autodesk Civil 3D — TIN-terrain-accurate rack and tracker placement, per-rack local grading, full electrical layout with cable and voltage-drop calculation, single-line diagrams, a yield estimate on Meteotest data, and a VR viewer — sold by quote only, with no price published in either English or German.
Aurora Solar Inc. (acquired Folsom Labs, 2019)
Design & simulation · Web
Cloud commercial-and-industrial PV design and simulation tool — rooftop, carport, ground mount and storage in one project — sold per seat, with a stated accuracy target relative to PVsyst and a PVsyst export on the top tier.
Terabase Energy
Cloud, physics-based energy-yield modelling for utility-scale PV — sub-hourly resolution, full 3D ray-traced shade on cloud GPUs, an open REST API and Python SDK, with a published per-user price and an unusually detailed public record of independent engineering reviews.
Valentin Software GmbH
Design & simulation · Desktop
Windows desktop PV design and simulation package built around 3D shading — model the buildings, extrude them from a cadastral map, place up to 7,500 mounted modules, and get a yield forecast, a circuit diagram and a customer-facing report, for a published €845/year named-user licence.
PVcase
AutoCAD-based design software for utility-scale ground-mount solar — terrain-adapted automated layouts, slope and grading analysis, 3D cabling and stringing, BOM and construction-ready CAD deliverables, sold by quote only.
European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Design & simulation · Web
The European Commission's free web tool and API for solar radiation and PV performance anywhere on Earth — grid-connected, tracking and off-grid performance, monthly, daily and hourly radiation, and a downloadable TMY — with no account, no key and no usage restriction.
PVsyst SA
Design & simulation · Desktop
The Windows desktop PV simulation package that most lenders treat as the reference yield model — grid-connected, stand-alone and pumping systems, 3D near-shading, hourly and sub-hourly, sold as a named annual licence in Swiss francs.
Pylon
Proposals & sales · Web
An Australian solar and battery design and proposal tool sold per project on prepaid credits rather than per seat, with an optional per-user CRM bolted alongside it.
Scanifly
A tiered done-for-you design desk that works inside your own Scanifly account — from a 3-hour remote site model up to a plan set with engineering stamps in under 48 hours — built around drone-derived 3D models rather than satellite imagery.
SolarEdge Technologies
Design & simulation · Web
SolarEdge's free browser-based PV design and proposal tool — HD imagery, AI-assisted 3D roof modelling, automatic panel placement, automatic stringing and DC cabling, and a customer proposal with financial analysis — with no licence or subscription fee.
Solargis
Design & simulation · Web
Cloud PV design and energy-yield simulation built directly on Solargis's own bankable solar and meteo dataset — 15-minute time series over 30+ years, a 3D energy system designer, and ray-traced simulation with the Perez all-weather sky model — at a published €12,000 subscription.
Enphase Energy (acquired Sofdesk, Jan 2021)
A cloud-based solar design and proposal platform owned and sold by Enphase Energy, the microinverter manufacturer.
Glytrix
CRM & lead management · Web
An Australian solar CRM with design, proposals and invoicing built in, metered on a monthly token allowance rather than on seats or projects.
The rarest kind of fact in this dataset: a vendor stating a limit in its own words. It is not a criticism — a tool that doesn’t do this may be the right tool for a different job.
6 products make no statement either way
We searched these vendors’ own pages and found neither a claim nor a denial. That is recorded as “not found”, which is different from “not offered” — the capability may well exist and simply not be documented. We never convert silence into a no.
Categories these products sit in
Capabilities bought alongside it
Terms worth knowing
17 of the 100 products we researched carry shading analysis, 16 of them at the depth we code as advanced. 3 explicitly do not offer it. Verified against vendor pages on 28 September 2026.
Working out how much of the sun a given panel actually sees once trees, chimneys, parapets, neighbouring buildings and the horizon are accounted for — and what that costs in annual yield.
Vendors name it 4 different ways on their own sites, including “Shading analysis”, “Shade analysis”, “Shading / TSRF / solar access output”, “Solar Access Values”. We normalise all of them onto one canonical capability so they can be compared.
