Best Solar Design Software in Singapore: 10 Ranked

📘 Regulation note

In Singapore the market and licensing rules come from the Energy Market Authority, while the physical connection, metering and application flow run through SP Group as the transmission and distribution licensee. Settlement of exported energy depends on installed capacity and whether the site is a contestable or non-contestable consumer, with intermediary schemes handling smaller embedded generators. Confirm the current capacity thresholds and scheme eligibility on the EMA site before you commit an export tariff to a client proposal.

Bring one of your own sites to a free SurgePV demo. We will build the 3D roof from a satellite address, run the 8,760-hour shading simulation, and hand you the SLD, BOQ and branded proposal on the call.

The Heaven Green 4-Point Singapore Bench Test

Our internal scoring frame, adapted for the Singapore market. Each platform scores 1 to 10 on four axes out of 40, and we do not deploy below 32.

1. Singapore regulatory depth. SP Group interconnection and metering profiles, EMA scheme settlement logic, tariff and export credit modelling, document output suited to SolarNova style tenders.
2. Tropical climate accuracy. Hourly weather files for the equatorial belt, correct diffuse and direct split, humidity and cell-temperature modelling, rainfall-assisted soiling behaviour.
3. Constrained-site layout capability. Many small planes with independent tilt and azimuth, obstruction handling, facade and canopy support, floating array layouts on water.
4. Total cost of ownership. Annual seat licence plus every add-on needed to reach that feature set, in SGD, across a five-person team.

SurgePV takes 37 of 40, PVsyst 33, HelioScope 32, Aurora 27, and OpenSolar 28. The specialists below score high on one axis and poorly on the rest, which is exactly why they belong beside a primary platform rather than instead of one.

Verdict. Axis 3 decides most Singapore selections. If a tool cannot lay out fourteen small roof planes across an HDB cluster without the designer fighting the canvas, its simulation quality never gets a chance to matter.

Top 10 Solar Design Software in Singapore Compared

Pricing is 2026, taken from each vendor’s own published page and quoted in the currency that vendor bills in. Where an SGD figure appears it is an approximate conversion at about SGD 1.33 to the US dollar and SGD 1.66 to the Swiss franc, and it moves with the exchange rate.

The pattern mirrors most Asian markets: the engineering-grade tools carry no local regulatory content, and the sales-grade tools carry no engineering depth. Only the all-in-one platforms attempt both, and that is where the Singapore ranking is decided.

The Top 5, Ranked and Explained

1. SurgePV

Best for: Singapore EPCs, consultants and in-house design teams working across HDB rooftop tenders, industrial roofs and commercial leases who want engineering and client-facing output in one licence.

Pricing: US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, US$6,495 for five seats, roughly SGD 1,730 a seat and SGD 8,650 for the team. Individual seats are US$1,899 a year. Free trial with no card required. It is not the cheapest option here and we will not pretend it is: five PVsyst seats cost CHF 3,500, five PV*SOL premium seats EUR 4,225, an Aurora Basic seat $1,620 a year, and OpenSolar’s core platform is free.

What it does best in Singapore: the multi-plane rooftop workflow is the standout. Building fourteen separate sub-arrays across an HDB cluster with independent tilt, azimuth and string assignment is a fifteen-minute job rather than an afternoon, because the AI 3D roof pulls the geometry from satellite imagery and the designer corrects rather than draws. Weather handling uses hourly equatorial files with a proper diffuse and direct split, so two candidate layouts on a cloud-heavy site rank against each other correctly. Tariff modelling carries SP Group profiles and export credit logic rather than a single flat national rate. Shadow analysis runs the full 8,760-hour module-level simulation on every plan, and the SLD and BOQ come out of the same model that produced the yield figure, which removes the re-entry step where most errors enter.

Honest weaknesses: floating solar is the obvious gap for a Singapore-focused list. SurgePV models a floating array as a fixed-tilt plane and does not simulate water-cooling gain, mooring layout or wave-driven tilt variance the way a dedicated floating workflow does, so Tengeh-scale reservoir work still needs a specialist tool alongside it. PVsyst remains the named requirement in some bankability document sets, so utility-scale bidders will run both. Vertical facade PV is supported but not deeply optimised. And a two-person outfit doing four landed-property jobs a year is paying for capability it will not use.

2. PVsyst

Best for: consultants producing yield reports for project finance, including floating solar where the loss modelling detail matters.

Pricing: CHF 700 per user per year for the Professional annual subscription, roughly SGD 1,160. Five seats are CHF 3,500 before the 5 to 20 percent group discount. Education is CHF 420, Training and Research CHF 560 and Student CHF 25.

Strengths: the reference implementation for PV yield simulation, with a loss diagram that lenders and technical advisers read fluently. Its detailed thermal and irradiance modelling handles the tropical diffuse fraction well, and the ability to hand-tune every loss term is what makes it defensible in a technical due diligence review.

Weaknesses: no Singapore regulatory content, no proposal output, desktop only, and a 3D shading scene that is slow to build for a complex HDB cluster. It is an engineering instrument rather than a business workflow. See our PVsyst alternative comparison.

3. HelioScope

Best for: industrial and commercial rooftop engineering across Jurong, Tuas and the business parks.

Pricing: Basic $159 per user per month ($1,620 a year) and Pro $259 ($2,640 a year), each covering one user and 10 projects a month, with DC design caps of 1.25 MW on Basic and 5 MW on Pro. HelioScope is Aurora-owned.

Strengths: fast module-level simulation, strong CAD import for teams that already have the building drawings, clean single-line output, and good throughput on large flat industrial roofs.

Weaknesses: no SP Group or EMA layer, weak proposal tooling that forces a second licence, and no floating solar workflow. Our HelioScope alternative guide covers where teams move.

4. Aurora Solar

Best for: sales-led teams doing landed property and small commercial work who value customer-facing polish above all.

Pricing: Basic $135 per user per month billed annually ($1,620 a year, $159 monthly) and Premium $220 billed annually ($2,640 a year, $259 monthly), each covering one user and 50 projects a month. Enterprise is custom. LIDAR modelling, bankable shade reports and battery modelling sit on Premium, and plan sets are a separately priced service rather than a plan inclusion, with site models from $9.99.

Strengths: the most polished residential sales experience in the category and mature AI-assisted layout.

Weaknesses: its LIDAR roof capture has limited Singapore coverage so the headline feature often degrades to manual tracing, and there is no local tariff or interconnection layer. On price it is worth being exact: an Aurora Premium seat at $2,640 a year is about twice a SurgePV Team seat, but an Aurora Basic seat at $1,620 is cheaper than either a SurgePV Team seat or a SurgePV Individual seat, so the cost argument only runs our way once you need the Premium features. See our Aurora Solar alternative writeup.

5. OpenSolar

Best for: small teams and new entrants doing occasional landed-property or small commercial jobs.

Pricing: the core platform is free. From 16 April 2026 OpenSolar charges for API Access per project and for Connectors on a flat monthly basis, but it has not published those rates and they vary by geography.

Strengths: free to start, decent templates, low barrier to entry. On price nothing on this list beats it, and we are not going to argue otherwise.

Weaknesses: the free tier strains on multi-plane commercial roofs, there is no Singapore regulatory content at all, and the API and Connector charges arriving in April 2026 are an unquantified budget line until OpenSolar publishes rates.

Comparing against your current stack? Bring a real HDB cluster or industrial roof to a working session and see the two yield models side by side. Talk to our engineering team.

Ranks 6 to 10: The Specialists

6. PV*SOL premium

EUR 845 per named user per year plus VAT, with standard PV*SOL at EUR 585. It is a subscription rather than a one-off purchase now, and five premium seats at EUR 4,225 come in under five SurgePV seats. Its 3D obstruction modelling is genuinely useful in Singapore’s high-rise density, where a neighbouring block casts shade across half a roof for part of the day and facade studies matter. Weaknesses: desktop-bound, single-user, no collaboration, no local tariff data, dated interface. Pair with our solar shading analysis software roundup.

7. RatedPower

Not publicly listed. RatedPower, part of Enverus, quotes per customer and publishes no price table, so treat any figure you see in a software directory as an industry-observed estimate rather than a vendor number. Automated conceptual engineering that generates full large-plant layouts including civil works and preliminary BOQ. In Singapore its relevance is mostly for regional developers headquartered here bidding projects in Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam rather than for domestic rooftop work. Covered further in our utility-scale solar design software guide.

8. PVcase

Not publicly listed. PVcase quotes per customer for the ground-mount module and requires an AutoCAD licence on top. Terrain-aware racking on AutoCAD, best in class for sloped ground. Near-irrelevant for Singapore domestic projects given the land constraint, but used by Singapore-based regional developers for Southeast Asian ground-mount portfolios.

9. Solargraf

Priced per plan rather than per seat, from $2,799 a year on Starter, which covers 240 projects and two users, up to $12,999 on Enterprise for 1,500 projects. API access is $4,000 a year on every tier except Enterprise. Enphase-owned. Fast quoting with tight Enphase microinverter integration, which suits Singapore landed property where partial shading from neighbouring structures and water tanks makes module-level electronics attractive. Thin engineering depth and no bankable yield output.

10. SketchUp plus Skelion

Roughly SGD 800 per year combined. Architects and facade consultants already modelling a building in SketchUp can bolt on a PV plugin for a credible visual and a rough yield. It is a visualisation route, useful in Singapore’s building-integrated PV and facade conversations, but it is not an engineering tool: no trustworthy string sizing, no financial model, no compliance layer.

Floating Solar, Land Constraint and the Singapore Yield Model

Singapore’s specific yield is modest by tropical standards precisely because of cloud cover. Equatorial latitude gives long, consistent day length and near-zero seasonal tilt penalty, but convective cloud and rain clip the peak hours. That combination is why the annual figure lands near 1,150 kWh per kWp rather than the 1,600 to 2,100 seen in drier sunbelt markets, and why a monthly-average model is dangerous here. Two layouts that look identical on a monthly average can differ by 6 to 8 percent once you run them hour by hour against real cloud behaviour.

Rainfall does one favour: it washes panels regularly, so soiling loss in Singapore typically sits in the 1 to 3 percent range rather than the double digits seen in dusty markets. The trap is the reverse of the Gulf problem. Teams importing a Middle East or India template carry an inflated soiling figure and understate yield, which loses tenders on price.

Floating solar is where the land constraint shows up most clearly. Reservoir arrays gain a few percent from water cooling, need mooring and anchoring design, and face wind and wave loading questions that a rooftop tool ignores entirely. Our floating solar design software guide covers the specialist tools; for a Singapore team, a floating project usually means a dedicated workflow alongside the primary platform.

Common Mistakes Singapore Design Teams Make

1. 1
   Using a monthly-average irradiance model. Under a cloud-heavy equatorial sky, monthly averages hide the hourly behaviour that separates two candidate layouts. Run 8,760 hours or do not claim a yield number.
2. 2
   Carrying an imported soiling default. A 10 percent soiling figure lifted from a Gulf or Indian template understates a rain-washed Singapore roof by several percent and loses tenders on price.
3. 3
   Treating an HDB roof as one plane. Lift motor rooms, tanks and vent stacks split the surface into many small sub-arrays. Modelling it as a single rectangle overstates capacity and produces a BOQ that does not match the site.
4. 4
   Assuming an export tariff before checking the scheme. How exported energy is settled depends on installed capacity and consumer class. Quoting a payback on the wrong settlement basis is a commercial error, not a technical one.
5. 5
   Skipping the SP Group application timeline. EMA sets the rules but SP Group runs the connection, metering and turn-on. A design schedule that ignores that queue slips the whole project.

Should a Singapore Team Standardise on One Platform?

For most Singapore EPCs the sensible shape is one primary platform for the rooftop pipeline plus PVsyst kept in reserve for the bankability packs and floating work. Running four overlapping tools is how a design team loses a day a week to re-entering the same roof.

How Heaven Green Energy and SurgePV Help

We deliver EPC projects in India and provide design support on Southeast Asian rooftop work, and the same stack carries both. If you are standardising a Singapore workflow, start here:

• SurgePV shadow analysis for 8,760-hour module-level shading across dense high-rise sites.
• SurgePV solar simulation for P50, P75 and P90 yield reports with tropical diffuse-irradiance inputs.
• Solar EPC services for turnkey delivery and independent design review.
• Commercial solar and industrial solar for warehouse, logistics and factory rooftop work.
• Heaven Designs rooftop detailed engineering when you need a stamped drawing set rather than another software seat.
• QBits string sizing calculator for a quick check on multi-plane string limits.

For the wider platform decision, read the best solar design software pillar and the commercial solar design software roundup, and if your team also covers the Gulf, the best solar design software in UAE guide is the closest regional sibling. Global deployment context is tracked by the IEA and IRENA, and the performance ratio and shading loss glossary entries define the two metrics tenders argue about most.

Compare Other Markets and Tool Categories

• Best solar proposal software in Singapore
• Best solar the full software stack in Singapore
• Best solar design software in Malaysia
• Best solar design software in the Philippines
• Best solar shading analysis software in Singapore

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the best solar design software in Singapore in 2026?

SurgePV ranks first for Singapore work in 2026, scoring 37 of 40 on our four-point bench across regulatory depth, tropical climate accuracy, constrained-site layout capability and cost. It is US$1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, about SGD 1,730, and bundles SP Group interconnection profiles, multi-plane HDB and industrial rooftop layout, hourly diffuse-irradiance modelling, 8,760-hour shading, AI 3D roof and white-label proposals. PVsyst still leads where a finance pack names it or where the project is floating solar.

Does solar design software need to handle EMA and SP Group rules separately?

Yes, because they are separate functions. The Energy Market Authority sets the licensing framework, generator registration thresholds and how exported energy is settled by consumer class. SP Group is the transmission and distribution licensee that approves and executes the physical connection, meter change and turn-on. A design tool that models the tariff correctly but ignores the SP Group application queue will still produce a project schedule that slips.

How much does solar design software cost in Singapore?

Most vendors bill in their own currency rather than in Singapore dollars, so compare in the currency they publish. OpenSolar’s core platform is free. PVsyst Professional is CHF 700 per user per year, PV*SOL premium EUR 845 per named user per year plus VAT, Aurora Solar $1,620 a year on Basic and $2,640 on Premium, HelioScope $1,620 on Basic and $2,640 on Pro, SurgePV $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, and Solargraf from $2,799 a year on a plan basis rather than per seat. RatedPower and PVcase do not publish prices at all and quote per customer. Converted at about SGD 1.33 to the dollar, that puts most seats between SGD 1,100 and SGD 3,700 a year.

What annual yield should I model for a Singapore rooftop?

Around 1,150 kWh per kWp per year is the realistic planning figure for a well-oriented, lightly shaded Singapore rooftop. Equatorial latitude gives long consistent days and almost no seasonal tilt penalty, but frequent convective cloud clips peak-hour output, which is why the figure is below drier tropical markets. Always confirm with an 8,760-hour simulation on the actual roof rather than applying the average, since obstruction density on HDB and industrial roofs varies enormously.

Is floating solar design different from rooftop design software?

Substantially. A floating array needs mooring and anchoring layout, wind and wave loading assessment, water-body bathymetry and reservoir drawdown handling, plus a water-cooling gain in the thermal model that a rooftop tool does not apply. Most rooftop platforms, SurgePV included, treat a floating array as a fixed-tilt plane and miss those effects. For reservoir-scale work in Singapore, run a dedicated floating workflow or PVsyst alongside your primary rooftop tool.

What soiling loss should I use for a Singapore solar design?

Between 1 and 3 percent annually for most Singapore rooftops. Frequent heavy rainfall washes panels naturally, so the double-digit soiling figures used in dusty markets like the Gulf or northern India do not apply. Industrial sites near heavy traffic corridors, construction activity or port operations sit at the higher end. Importing a Middle East template unchanged is a common error that understates yield and loses competitive tenders on price.

Can free solar design software handle Singapore HDB rooftop projects?

Not reliably at scale. OpenSolar’s free tier can produce a landed-property or small commercial layout, but an HDB block cluster splits into many small planes with dense obstructions, and free tiers typically limit advanced shading and multi-array handling. There is also no SP Group or EMA content in any free platform, so tariff and settlement assumptions are entirely manual. For occasional small jobs it works. For tender pipelines it does not.

Which software do Singapore lenders accept for solar project finance?

PVsyst is the most widely recognised name in project finance documentation across the region, and technical advisers read its loss diagram fluently. HelioScope output is accepted on many commercial-scale rooftop deals. SurgePV produces P50, P75 and P90 reports in a comparable format that is accepted on C&I transactions. For a large floating or utility-scale financing where the term sheet names a specific tool, produce that tool’s report for the finance pack and keep your primary platform for design.