Most articles about the best solar software in Ireland are written as though the reader runs a fifty-person company. Almost nobody here does. The Irish market is a few thousand installations a year spread across a large number of small firms, and the typical buyer of this software is two electricians, a van, a part-time bookkeeper and whoever answers the phone. For that business the multi-licence stack a US roundup prescribes is not just expensive, it is actively harmful: a half-configured CRM nobody updates is worse than a shared calendar. So this page asks a different question. Which single solar tool do you need, which general business system sits beside it, and at what size does a third licence start paying for itself. We rank ten platforms in euros across design, monitoring, accounting and job management. The paid engineering core we rank first is SurgePV at roughly EUR 1,180 per user per year, and we will be clear about when you should not buy it yet.
Direct answer. The best solar software setup in Ireland for 2026 depends on size. A one or two person installer needs a free design and proposal tool, the free monitoring portal from their inverter brand, and an Irish accounts package such as Big Red Cloud at about EUR 360 a year. A three to eight person team adds SurgePV at roughly EUR 1,180 per user per year and a job management tool such as Tradify at EUR 600 to EUR 1,200. Two licences covers almost every Irish installer.
If you want the single-category rankings, our best solar design software in Ireland guide scores the engineering tools on I.S. 10101 output and diffuse-sky modelling, and the best solar proposal software in Ireland guide covers the SEAI grant taper and supplier-set export rates inside the quote. This page is about the whole toolset, including the parts nobody sells you.
Why a Heavy Stack Is Usually the Wrong Answer in Ireland
Software cost is not the reason a heavy stack fails a small Irish installer. Attention is.
Every additional system needs somebody to keep it true. A CRM that is not updated after every site visit produces a pipeline report that is confidently wrong, which is worse than a whiteboard everybody trusts. A job management system nobody fills in on site produces empty job cards and a false sense of record keeping. In a company of four people with two of them on roofs, the number of systems that stay accurate is roughly the number of systems one office person can maintain, and that number is usually two.
The second constraint is volume. Software that saves fifteen minutes per design is compelling at forty designs a month and irrelevant at six. An Irish installer doing six domestic jobs a month saves ninety minutes, which does not repay a EUR 1,180 licence on time alone. It might still repay it on win rate, on avoiding an undersized system, or on not having a customer argue about a yield figure two winters later, but that is a different argument and it should be made honestly rather than dressed up as efficiency.
The third is that a lot of what an Irish installer must do is administrative rather than technical. SEAI grant handling, ESB Networks notifications, Safe Electric certification and the customer’s BER position are all paperwork with deadlines. None of it is solved by a better shading engine, and all of it is solved by a system that remembers what stage each job is at.
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.
Book a free SurgePV demo → Compare pricingThe One-Plus-One Test
This is the framework we use for small-market installers, and it exists to stop you buying a fourth system. The rule is simple: one solar-specific tool, one general business system, and a third licence only when a named job is provably falling through the gap between them.
- The solar tool has to produce the number the customer signs and the drawing the electrician works from. Design, yield, grant maths, export income, and an I.S. 10101 consistent single line diagram.
- The general business system has to hold everything that is not solar: the quote, the invoice, the VAT return, the job stages, the certification records and the customer history.
- The third licence is justified only by evidence. Name the job that was lost, the certificate that could not be found, or the week of unbilled work. If you cannot name one, do not buy.
- Monitoring does not count as a licence, because it arrives free with the inverter and you do not get to choose it independently.
- Review annually against volume. The correct stack for six jobs a month is genuinely different from the correct stack for twenty, and upgrading late is cheaper than upgrading early.
Scored against that test, most Irish installers are already carrying either too little (no system at all beyond email and a phone, which fails on records) or one system too many (a CRM, a job tool and a spreadsheet that disagree). The right answer is nearly always two systems, both actually used.
Verdict. Buy the general business system first if your records or your cash are the problem, and buy the solar tool first if your yield numbers, your grant maths or your drawings are the problem. Almost nobody in Ireland needs both on day one.
The Top 10 Solar and Business Software Platforms for Irish Installers
Pricing is 2026 in euros, annualised, with dollar list prices converted at roughly EUR 0.91 per US dollar. These platforms sit in different layers, so the price column is not a like-for-like comparison.
1. SurgePV
What it does best. The paid engineering and proposal core in one licence. An Irish address becomes an AI-built 3D roof, then module layout, string sizing, an 8,760-hour module-level simulation that treats the very diffuse Irish sky properly rather than as a sunny-market approximation, an I.S. 10101 consistent single line diagram, a bill of quantities and a branded euro proposal. The financial engine models the SEAI grant as the two-step taper it actually is and lets you set the Clean Export Guarantee rate per supplier rather than assuming one national number.
Real pricing. About EUR 1,180 (US$1,299) per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, so roughly EUR 5,900 for five seats. Individual seats about EUR 1,725 (US$1,899). Free trial, no credit card.
Who it suits. Irish installers doing more than about ten jobs a month, anyone quoting commercial or agricultural roofs, and teams whose yield figures have been challenged.
Honest limitations. For a two-person domestic installer doing six jobs a month, this is more tool than the business needs and we would tell you to stay on free software until volume justifies it. SurgePV does no monitoring at all, no job scheduling, no invoicing and no VAT return, so it can never be your only system in Ireland. It does not submit an NC6 or store your Safe Electric certification records. Its component library is strong on major brands but thinner on the specific racking and slate hook systems common on older Irish housing stock. Brand recognition in Ireland is low, which occasionally costs a conversation with a commercial client. And where a lender names PVsyst by report format, SurgePV is a complement rather than a replacement.
2. OpenSolar
What it does best. Being genuinely free at the core, which for a large share of the Irish market is the correct answer rather than a compromise. Roof layout from imagery, a workable shading model, a customer-facing proposal with e-signature, and a component database that covers mainstream European hardware. A sole trader can produce a professional-looking quote the same evening as the site visit at no licence cost.
Real pricing. Free core platform. From 16 April 2026 OpenSolar starts charging for API Access on a per project basis and for Connectors as a flat monthly fee, but it does not publish those rates and they vary by country, so we will not guess at them here. The design and proposal platform itself remains free, which makes it the cheapest tool on this page by a distance, including cheaper than SurgePV.
Who it suits. Sole traders and two-person teams, new entrants, and anyone whose current alternative is a Word document.
Honest limitations. The financial model needs manual configuration to reflect the SEAI taper and supplier-set export rates correctly, and it will happily produce a confident wrong number if you skip that. Yield modelling is lighter than a dedicated simulation engine, which matters under a diffuse sky. Support is community-scale, and the monetisation model means hardware suppliers sit closer to the product than they do in a paid tool.
3. SolarEdge Monitoring Portal
What it does best. Module-level visibility on the brand that holds a large share of the Irish premium residential and commercial market. Per-optimiser data settles the two arguments Irish installers actually have: whether a chimney or dormer is shading more than predicted, and whether a single module has failed. The installer fleet view and automated alerts are stronger than most bundled portals.
Real pricing. Included with SolarEdge hardware for the life of the system.
Who it suits. Installers standardised on SolarEdge, especially on complex or shaded roofs.
Honest limitations. Hardware locked, so it covers only the SolarEdge portion of a mixed fleet. Battery reporting is less detailed than some competitors. No design, no proposals, no invoicing, no records.
4. Enphase Enlighten
What it does best. Per-module residential monitoring with a homeowner app that absorbs support calls. On Irish microinverter installations, a customer who can see a grey November week on their own phone is a customer who does not ring you about it. Fleet-level alerting lets an installer spot a failed unit before the homeowner does, which turns a complaint into a proactive visit.
Real pricing. Included with Enphase microinverter systems, with installer fleet tools bundled.
Who it suits. Residential installers standardised on Enphase, common on complex Irish roofs where per-module operation is worth the hardware premium.
Honest limitations. Hardware locked. Mixed fleets mean multiple portals and no single view. Commercial and three-phase capability is narrower than a string-inverter portal, and there is no design, sales or records capability at all.
5. Huawei FusionSolar
What it does best. Commercial and agricultural fleet monitoring. Plant-level and string-level data, alarm management, technician assignment and reporting that stands up in front of a business customer who wants monthly performance evidence for their own accounts. For farm and light industrial work in Ireland, this is often the portal that covers the largest kilowatt share of your fleet.
Real pricing. Free with Huawei inverters, including installer fleet management.
Who it suits. Installers doing agricultural, commercial and larger three-phase work on Huawei hardware.
Honest limitations. Hardware locked, and some Irish commercial clients have procurement policies about the brand that you will have to navigate rather than argue with. The interface is dense for homeowners. No design, sales or job management.
6. Big Red Cloud
What it does best. Irish small business accounting, built in Ireland and priced for a company of four. Sales and purchase ledgers, bank reconciliation, and VAT returns in Irish format with the correct rates and periods, which matters more than it sounds when domestic solar is zero rated and commercial work is not. Every accountant in the country can open it.
Real pricing. Commonly EUR 25 to EUR 40 per month, so roughly EUR 300 to EUR 480 a year.
Who it suits. Sole traders and small installers who want compliant books without an implementation project.
Honest limitations. It is accounting and nothing else. No job costing against a solar install worth the name, no stock, no scheduling, and a thinner integration story than the international cloud packages. If you grow past about ten people you will outgrow it.
7. Xero
What it does best. Accounting with an integration layer around it. Irish VAT handling, bank feeds, quotes and invoices, project tracking, and a large add-on marketplace including most job management tools, so your job cards can turn into invoices without retyping. For a growing installer this is the general business system that scales without becoming an ERP project.
Real pricing. Roughly EUR 33 to EUR 75 per month depending on plan, so about EUR 400 to EUR 900 a year, plus per-user payroll if you use it.
Who it suits. Irish installers of four people and up who want the books and the job system to talk to each other.
Honest limitations. No solar knowledge whatsoever. Project profitability reporting is basic unless you add a tool on top. The cheapest plans limit transaction volumes in ways that catch growing companies mid-year.
8. Tradify
What it does best. Job management for small trade businesses, which is exactly what an Irish solar installer is. Quotes, jobs, scheduling across a couple of vans, time tracking, on-site job notes and photos, and invoicing that pushes straight into Xero. For a solar company the useful trick is stage tracking: which jobs are waiting on the SEAI grant approval, which are waiting on an NC6 acknowledgement, which are waiting on a BER assessment, and which are ready to install.
Real pricing. Tradify publishes Irish prices in euro: Lite EUR 38, Pro EUR 42 and Plus EUR 49 per user per month, with a Custom tier by quote. That is EUR 456 to EUR 588 a year per seat, so about EUR 910 to EUR 1,180 a year for a two-van team.
Who it suits. Installers running two or more vans, and anyone whose administrative deadlines are being tracked in somebody’s head.
Honest limitations. Generic trades software. It knows nothing about strings, yield or grant rules, so any SEAI or ESB Networks stage tracking is custom fields you configure yourself. Reporting is functional rather than analytical, and it will not produce a customer-facing solar proposal.
9. Joblogic
What it does best. Service and maintenance contract management at the heavier end. Planned maintenance schedules, asset registers per site, engineer mobile app with certificate capture, and contract billing. For an installer who has built a maintenance book across a few hundred systems and now needs to prove what was serviced when, this is the layer that replaces a spreadsheet.
Real pricing. Commonly EUR 40 to EUR 100 per user per month, so roughly EUR 2,400 to EUR 6,000 a year for five users.
Who it suits. Established installers with a real service and maintenance revenue line, and anyone servicing commercial or public sector sites with contractual response times.
Honest limitations. Heavier than a small installer needs and it takes real configuration effort to earn its price. It is not a sales tool and not a design tool. Below about ten employees, Tradify does the useful eighty percent for a quarter of the effort.
10. PVsyst
What it does best. Bankable yield modelling for the commercial and agricultural projects where a bank, a grant body or a technical adviser wants an independent number. Its diffuse and near-shading models are well documented, which matters in Ireland where diffuse irradiance is a large share of the annual total and an optimistic model is easy to hide.
Real pricing. CHF 700 per user per year for the Professional subscription, which is about EUR 750 at roughly EUR 1.07 per Swiss franc. It is an annual subscription now, not a perpetual licence. Worth saying plainly: five PVsyst seats cost CHF 3,500, comfortably less than five SurgePV seats at US$6,495.
Who it suits. Consultants, larger commercial developers, and installers who occasionally need a third-party-credible yield report.
Honest limitations. Desktop only, steep learning curve, no proposal, no drawings, no CRM, no invoicing. Buying it for domestic work in Ireland is a category error, and most installers are better served by paying a consultant for the occasional report than by carrying the licence and the skill.
All 10 Compared: Layer, Euro Price and Best Fit
Read this table by layer. Position 6 beating position 10 does not mean Big Red Cloud replaces PVsyst, it means that for the job it does, in an Irish small business, it is the better buy.
| # | Platform | Layer | Price (EUR per year) | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SurgePV | Design, simulation, proposal | EUR 1,180 per user (US$1,299) | Teams above roughly ten jobs a month |
| 2 | OpenSolar | Design and proposal | Free core; API and Connector fees from 16 Apr 2026 not published | Sole traders and new entrants |
| 3 | SolarEdge Portal | Module-level monitoring | Included with hardware | Shaded and premium residential roofs |
| 4 | Enphase Enlighten | Module-level monitoring | Included with hardware | Microinverter residential fleets |
| 5 | Huawei FusionSolar | Commercial fleet monitoring | Free with Huawei hardware | Farm, commercial and three-phase work |
| 6 | Big Red Cloud | Irish accounting and VAT | EUR 300 to EUR 480 | Sole traders and very small teams |
| 7 | Xero | Accounting with integrations | EUR 400 to EUR 900 | Growing installers linking jobs to books |
| 8 | Tradify | Job management and scheduling | EUR 456 to EUR 588 per user (EUR 38 to EUR 49/user/mo) | Two or more vans and deadline tracking |
| 9 | Joblogic | Service contract management | EUR 2,400 to EUR 6,000 for 5 users | Established maintenance books |
| 10 | PVsyst | Bankable simulation | CHF 700 per user (about EUR 750) | Commercial and agricultural finance |
SEAI Grant Administration Is a Software Job
The single most underrated piece of work in an Irish solar business is grant administration, and it is administrative rather than technical, which is why no design tool solves it.
The SEAI Solar PV Scheme pays a two-step taper rather than a percentage, currently EUR 700 per kWp for the first 2 kWp and EUR 200 per kWp from 2 to 4 kWp, capped at EUR 1,800. Two consequences follow. First, any tool that models the grant as a percentage of system cost misprices every single quote, and the error grows with system size. Second, the marginal grant euro falls sharply above 2 kWp, which changes the sizing conversation with a customer who assumed bigger is proportionally better subsidised.
The process side is where jobs stall. The application has to be in place before works begin, the installation has to be carried out by an installer on the SEAI registered list, the customer’s home has to meet the scheme conditions, and a Building Energy Rating assessment is part of the completion path. Each of those is a state a job can sit in for weeks, and each has a document attached. Multiply by fifteen live jobs and you have a tracking problem that a phone and a memory will lose. The authority for scheme rules and current rates is SEAI, and rates do change, so any tool that hard-codes them needs checking each year.
📘 Regulation note
Ireland does not use MCS, the Smart Export Guarantee, Ofgem or the G98 and G99 process. Those are British. The Irish equivalents are the SEAI registered installer list, the Clean Export Guarantee with rates set by each supplier, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, and the ESB Networks NC6 and NC7 forms. A tool configured for the UK will produce paperwork an Irish job cannot use.
ESB Networks, Safe Electric and the Records You Must Keep
Three record-keeping duties sit outside every solar-specific tool on the market, and they belong in whichever general business system you run.
ESB Networks notification. The NC6 is the notification path for micro-generation up to 6 kVA single phase and 11 kVA three phase. Above that you move into the NC7 mini-generation route, with an application, an assessment and a connection offer that has to be in hand before energisation. The practical software requirement is unglamorous: store the reference, the submission date, the acknowledgement and the phase and capacity data against the customer record, so that when the property is sold in six years the paperwork exists. ESB Networks publishes the current forms and thresholds.
Safe Electric certification. Electrical work is carried out by a Registered Electrical Contractor and the completion certificate goes through the Safe Electric scheme. That certificate, along with the test results behind it, is your evidence that the installation was compliant with the national wiring rules. Losing it costs you when a customer, an insurer or a purchaser’s solicitor asks.
Export arrangements. The Clean Export Guarantee is a supplier obligation with rates set by suppliers rather than by the regulator, so the customer’s export income depends on who they buy electricity from and it can change when they switch. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities sets the framework. A proposal that quotes a single national export rate is guessing, and a records system that does not note which supplier the customer is on cannot answer a query about it later.
- One folder per customer, inside a system, not in email. NC6 or NC7 reference, Safe Electric certificate, grant application and payment, commissioning photos, inverter and battery serial numbers.
- Job stages that match the real process. Survey, grant approved, notification submitted, installed, certified, grant claimed, monitoring handed over.
- A named owner for each deadline. Grant applications and network notifications fail quietly, not loudly.
- Annual rate review. Grant amounts, export rates and thresholds all move, and stale numbers in a quote template are the most common cause of a margin surprise.
Our practical measurement workflow is covered in how to monitor solar generation, the maintenance side in our solar quarterly maintenance checklist, and the term customers most often misunderstand is defined in our performance ratio glossary entry. Where a hybrid or battery system is involved, our sister engineering team’s battery sizing guide is a useful cross-check.
Sizing a system or checking a payback? Try our solar calculator for a quick estimate, then talk to our engineering team about the design behind it.
The Stack We Prescribe, by Irish Installer Size
This is the practical output of the page. Four sizes, four answers, in euros. Notice that the smallest one is genuinely cheap and that is not a compromise.
Profile A: sole trader or two-person team, up to 6 jobs a month. Zero paid solar licences. OpenSolar free for design and proposals, with the SEAI taper and your customer’s actual export rate configured properly rather than left on defaults. Monitoring free from whichever inverter you fit. Big Red Cloud at roughly EUR 360 a year for the books and VAT. Job tracking on a shared calendar and a single spreadsheet of live jobs and their grant stage. Total: about EUR 360 to EUR 500 a year. Anyone selling you more than this at this size is selling, not advising.
Profile B: three to eight person domestic installer, 10 to 25 jobs a month. Two paid licences. SurgePV at about EUR 1,180 per seat, commonly one or two seats rather than five, so EUR 1,180 to EUR 2,360, because the yield number and the grant maths now reach enough customers to matter. Tradify at EUR 456 to EUR 588 per seat, so EUR 910 to EUR 1,760 for two or three seats, for scheduling, job cards and stage tracking against SEAI and ESB Networks deadlines. Xero at EUR 600 for the books, connected to Tradify so job cards become invoices. Monitoring still free. Total: roughly EUR 2,700 to EUR 4,700 a year.
Profile C: commercial and agricultural installer. Two or three licences with a different emphasis. SurgePV on a 5-User Team plan at EUR 5,900 for five seats, because three-phase, larger roofs and NC7 capacity questions justify a proper engineering tool. Xero at EUR 900. PVsyst at CHF 700 per user per year, about EUR 750, only when a bank, a grant body or a technical adviser names it, and hiring a consultant for the occasional report is often cheaper. Huawei FusionSolar free for fleet monitoring on the commercial hardware you fit. Total: about EUR 7,550 a year.
Profile D: installer with a real service and maintenance book. A third licence finally earns its place. Joblogic at roughly EUR 2,400 to EUR 6,000 for five users for planned maintenance, asset registers and certificate capture. Xero at EUR 900. One SurgePV seat at EUR 1,180 if you still sell new systems, none if you do not. Monitoring free but consolidated weekly into one report, because a mixed fleet across three portals is the normal Irish situation. Total: EUR 3,300 to EUR 8,100 a year.
The pattern is that the second system is nearly always the general business one, not a second solar tool, and the third is bought only when a service contract or a compliance record forces it.
Buy This, Not That
- ✓ You quote more than ten systems a month
- ✓ You are moving into three-phase or commercial roofs
- ✓ A customer has challenged a yield figure
- ✓ Your grant maths lives in a spreadsheet nobody owns
- ✗ A grant application slipped past a deadline
- ✗ You cannot find a two-year-old completion certificate
- ✗ Work gets done and invoiced weeks late
- ✗ Two people quoted the same customer differently
Five Software Mistakes Irish Installers Make
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1
Buying UK-configured software. MCS, the Smart Export Guarantee and G98 do not exist here. A template referencing them tells an Irish customer you do not know the market.
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2
Modelling the SEAI grant as a percentage. It is a two-step taper capped at EUR 1,800, so a percentage model overprices small systems and overpromises on large ones.
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3
Quoting one national export rate. Clean Export Guarantee rates are set by each supplier, so export income depends on who the customer buys electricity from.
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4
Running three systems with four staff. Whichever one nobody updates becomes the one everybody quotes from, and it is wrong.
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5
Treating monitoring as the customer's problem. It is your evidence for a yield dispute and your early warning on a failed unit, so set it up as a fleet from the first install.
The delivery failures that follow from these choices are covered in our common mistakes EPC companies make in rooftop solar writeup.
How Heaven Green Energy and SurgePV Help Irish Teams
Heaven Green Energy has delivered more than 10,000 solar installations with an in-house engineering group, and we build software for jobs we do ourselves. That is why this page tells a two-person Irish installer to stay on free tools rather than selling them a licence they will not use. Useful starting points:
- Solar EPC services for how we structure turnkey delivery and performance guarantees.
- Commercial solar for the commercial and agricultural end where a paid engineering tool starts to pay.
- Solar design software resource centre from our sister engineering team.
- Solar quotation checklist for what a compliant customer quote should contain before you automate it.
Neutral market context for a commercial proposal comes from the International Energy Agency and IRENA country profiles. If you are choosing the best solar software in Ireland for your own company, start by counting your monthly job volume and your office headcount, then buy the smallest stack that keeps both honest.
Related Solar Software Guides
- Best Solar Design Software in Ireland: Top 10 for 2026
- Best Solar Proposal Software in Ireland: Top 10
- Best Solar Software in the UK: The Full Stack
- Best Solar Software in Canada: Top 10 Platforms
- Solar Design Software 2026: Tools Compared and Priced
- Solar Proposal Software Compared
Compare Other Markets and Tool Categories
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best solar software in Ireland in 2026?
It depends on size, and that is the honest answer rather than an evasion. For a sole trader or two-person team, free OpenSolar plus free inverter monitoring plus an Irish accounts package such as Big Red Cloud at about EUR 360 a year is the correct stack. For a team above roughly ten jobs a month, SurgePV at about EUR 1,180 per user per year becomes the paid engineering and proposal core, paired with a job management tool such as Tradify and accounting in Xero.
How many software licences does an Irish solar installer need?
Two for almost every Irish business shape: one solar tool and one general business system. Monitoring does not count because it arrives free with the inverter. A third licence is justified only when you can name the job that was lost, the certificate that could not be found or the week of unbilled work that caused it. Running three systems with four staff usually means one of them is out of date and everybody quotes from the wrong one.
Does Irish solar software need to handle MCS or the Smart Export Guarantee?
No. MCS, the Smart Export Guarantee, Ofgem and the G98 and G99 connection process are British and have no standing in Ireland. The Irish equivalents are the SEAI registered installer list, the Clean Export Guarantee with rates set by individual suppliers, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, and the ESB Networks NC6 and NC7 notification routes. Software configured for the UK will produce quote text and paperwork that an Irish job cannot use.
How should software model the SEAI solar grant?
As a two-step taper, not a percentage. The scheme currently pays EUR 700 per kWp for the first 2 kWp and EUR 200 per kWp from 2 to 4 kWp, capped at EUR 1,800, and the installation must be carried out by an SEAI registered installer with the application in place before works begin. A percentage model gets every system size wrong, and the error is largest exactly where the customer is most price sensitive. Check the current rates each year because they do change.
Do Irish installers need to pay for solar monitoring software?
No. SolarEdge, Enphase, Huawei FusionSolar, GivEnergy and Sungrow all bundle monitoring with the hardware, which means your inverter procurement chooses your monitoring layer rather than you choosing it independently. The practical consequence for a mixed fleet is three or four portals and no single view, which most Irish installers manage with a weekly consolidated review rather than by paying for an aggregation platform they do not have the volume to justify.
What software keeps ESB Networks and Safe Electric records?
Your general business system, not a solar tool. The NC6 or NC7 reference, submission and acknowledgement dates, the Safe Electric completion certificate, test results, commissioning photos and equipment serial numbers all belong against the customer record in a job management system such as Tradify or Joblogic. The alternative, which is an email inbox, fails at exactly the moment the customer sells the house and a solicitor asks for the paperwork.
Is free solar design software good enough for an Irish installer?
For a small domestic installer, usually yes. OpenSolar produces a professional proposal at no licence cost, and at six jobs a month the time saved by a paid tool does not repay the licence on efficiency alone. Two cautions apply. Configure the SEAI taper and the customer’s actual export rate properly rather than leaving defaults in place, and be careful with yield under a diffuse Irish sky, where a lighter simulation model can be optimistic in a way that surfaces two winters later.
When should an Irish installer upgrade to a paid engineering tool?
When one of four things is true: you pass roughly ten jobs a month, you move into three-phase, commercial or agricultural roofs, a customer or a commercial client has challenged a yield figure, or your grant and export maths lives in a spreadsheet nobody owns. Volume alone is the weakest of the four reasons. The strongest is credibility, because a yield number you can defend with an hourly model is what keeps a commercial job from turning into an argument.
Stop paying for four tools. Design it all in one.
SurgePV replaces Aurora + HelioScope + PVsyst + a separate proposal tool in a single license. AI 3D roof in under 60 seconds, bankable 8,760-hour simulation, auto-SLD, BOQ, DXF/DWG export and branded proposals.
Free trial, no credit card · $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team planDisclaimer: SurgePV is our own product. It is built by the Heaven Group, the same company as Heaven Green Energy, so treat this as a recommendation from its maker.