If you are shortlisting solar design software UK buyers actually use in 2026, you are designing into the most rules-dense solar market in Europe. BS 7671 governs every circuit you draw, MCS certification decides whether your customer can claim the Smart Export Guarantee at all, the DNO connection process forks hard at 3.68 kW per phase, and Part P makes the electrical work in a dwelling notifiable. Most global design platforms treat the UK as a slightly cloudier version of California. The platform that wins our 2026 bench is SurgePV, a cloud-native all-in-one suite at roughly £1,030 (US$1,299) per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, which is under half the annual cost of an Aurora Premium seat at US$220 per user per month billed annually. Below are the ten platforms UK installers genuinely shortlist, priced in pounds, with honest limitations on each including ours. You can compare SurgePV pricing before you speak to a sales rep.
Direct answer. The best solar design software in the UK for 2026 is SurgePV, at about £1,030 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan (£5,150 for five seats). It ships BS 7671 compliance flags on the generated single-line diagram, MCS-aware proposal templates carrying the Standard Estimation Method disclosure, a SEG supplier tariff library, a G98 versus G99 trigger inside the design canvas, 8,760-hour module-level shading, AI 3D roof from satellite, and white-label proposals on every plan.
This guide is written for MCS-certified installers, EPC firms, engineering consultancies and in-house design teams shipping five or more projects a month. We rank ten platforms on four criteria: UK regulatory depth, engineering rigour, workflow coverage from address to signed proposal, and total cost of ownership in pounds for a five-person team. Where a competitor beats SurgePV we say so, and SurgePV’s own weak spots are named in section one rather than buried.
What Makes UK Solar Design Different
Five things, and each one breaks a tool built for the American market.
The code is BS 7671, not the NEC. The IET Wiring Regulations, currently the 18th Edition with Amendment 2, carry Section 712 for solar photovoltaic power supply systems and Section 722 where an EV charger shares the installation. Isolation on both the DC and AC sides, RCD selection, surge protection under Section 443 and the prosumer low voltage installation rules in Section 826 all differ from NEC 690 conventions. A single-line diagram labelled to NEC practice gives your electrician a drawing the building control body will query.
MCS is the gate on everything commercial. A domestic system installed by a contractor who is not MCS certified cannot access the Smart Export Guarantee, and in practice cannot access most finance or the zero rate VAT paperwork trail cleanly either. The PV installation standard is MIS 3002, and it requires the customer to receive a performance estimate produced by the MCS Standard Estimation Method, with an explicit shading factor and the assumptions stated. A tool that emits a bare “your system will make 3,800 kWh a year” figure with no method reference and no shading factor gives your certification body a finding at audit sampling.
The DNO forks at 3.68 kW per phase. Below that, a G98 connection is a notification and you can commission first and tell the network operator after. Above it, you are in G99 territory, which means pre-approval before energisation. Median G99 turnaround has been sitting in the region of three to four months across the larger operators, and constrained network areas are worse. Any tool that lets a salesperson quote a 9.6 kW array without surfacing that fork is manufacturing a cancellation.
Part P makes it notifiable. Electrical installation work in a dwelling in England and Wales falls under Part P of the Building Regulations. Either you are registered with a competent person scheme such as NICEIC, NAPIT or ELECSA and self-certify, or you notify building control. Scotland runs its own Building Standards route. This is a documentation obligation your design pack should feed, not an afterthought.
VAT is zero rated, for now. The installation of qualifying energy saving materials, including solar panels and, since February 2024, standalone battery storage, is zero rated for VAT on residential accommodation across Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That relief is legislated to run to 31 March 2027, after which the reduced 5 percent rate returns unless extended. If your proposal template hard-codes 5 percent or 20 percent on a domestic job, every quote you send is wrong by the tax.
📘 Regulation note
Per Ofgem and MCS, a UK domestic PV system must be installed to BS 7671 by an MCS certified contractor to qualify for the Smart Export Guarantee, connected under the G98 or G99 process set by the local distribution network operator, and notified under Part P where applicable. Verify the current VAT position on gov.uk before quoting, because the zero rate has an end date.
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 Smart Export Guarantee: Why One Export Rate Ruins a Proposal
Under the SEG, licensed suppliers with more than 150,000 domestic customers must offer at least one export tariff to small-scale generators. What they are not required to do is offer a good one. The spread between the worst and the best mandatory tariff is wide enough that the same 5 kW array produces materially different lifetime numbers depending on who the customer buys electricity from.
| Tariff type | Typical 2026 rate | How it pays | Design consequence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic mandatory flat SEG | Around 3p to 5p per kWh | Flat, all hours | Export has almost no value, so size to self-consumption |
| Competitive flat SEG | Around 12p to 16p per kWh | Flat, all hours | Export is worth chasing, larger array justified |
| Time of export, agile style | Varies by half hour, peaks well above 20p | Half-hourly wholesale linked | Battery plus export scheduling changes the model entirely |
| Bundled supplier deal | Higher rate, tied to buying import from same supplier | Conditional | Model must flag the tie-in, not just the headline rate |
Two consequences follow. First, sizing changes with the tariff. On a 4p flat tariff the rational design maximises self-consumption and a battery pays for itself faster than extra panels do. On a 15p tariff the arithmetic flips and the west-facing roof plane you were going to skip starts earning. Second, a smart meter capable of half-hourly export readings is a precondition for the better tariffs, so the design pack should record whether one is present. Software that applies a single national export rate to every quote is producing fiction, and the customer finds out in year one.
Worth stating plainly for anyone still working from old templates: the Feed-in Tariff closed to new applicants in March 2019. Existing FIT generators keep their contracts. If your proposal software still shows a FIT generation payment line, delete it.
Get your sizing sanity-checked. For a fast independent second opinion on system size and payback before you build the design, run the numbers through our free solar calculator or talk to our engineering team.
The 4-Point UK Bench Test
This is the framework we use internally before deploying any design platform on our own solar EPC work. Each tool scores 1 to 10 on four axes, out of 40. We do not deploy anything below 32.
- UK regulatory depth. BS 7671 labelling on the generated SLD, MCS Standard Estimation Method output with a shading factor, SEG supplier tariff library, G98 versus G99 trigger, correct VAT treatment on the domestic quote.
- Engineering rigour. 8,760-hour module-level simulation, P50, P75 and P90 outputs UK lenders accept on commercial deals, diffuse-heavy irradiance modelling that reflects a British sky rather than a desert one, soiling and low-light behaviour.
- Workflow coverage. Address to BS 7671 labelled SLD to bill of quantities to branded proposal in one licence, with DXF or DWG export for the structural engineer.
- Total cost of ownership in GBP. Seat licence plus add-ons plus onboarding time, per finished project, across a five-person team.
Scores across the ten platforms: SurgePV 36, Aurora 32, Easy PV 31, OpenSolar 30, HelioScope 30, SolarEdge Designer 24, PVsyst 30, PVSOL 29, Scanifly 22, PVcase 24. The scoring is ours and it is opinionated. Two results most readers will find uncomfortable, and both are honest: Easy PV scores 31 on a free Basic tier with Pro at only £35 a month, and OpenSolar’s core platform is free outright. We also marked SurgePV’s own cost score down from 37 to 36 after re-verifying competitor pricing in August 2026, because PVsyst at CHF 700 per user per year and PVSOL Premium at EUR 845 per named user per year both undercut it per seat. Scanifly and PVcase lose points on cost transparency, because neither publishes a price.
Top 10 Solar Design Software in the UK Compared
Pricing below is 2026, annualised, with dollar-denominated products converted at approximately £0.79 per US dollar. Treat converted figures as indicative, because vendors quoting in USD move with the exchange rate.
| # | Platform | Price (GBP, mid plan) | Key capability | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SurgePV | £1,030/user/yr (US$1,299) | All-in-one design, 8,760-hr simulation, BS 7671 labelled SLD, MCS-aware proposals | Installers and EPCs doing 5+ projects a month |
| 2 | Aurora Solar | US$135/user/mo Basic to US$220 Premium, billed annually (about £107 to £174) | Deepest residential design and sales workflow | Large residential shops with Aurora process debt |
| 3 | Easy PV | Basic free; Pro £35/month; Enterprise not publicly listed | UK-native MCS calculations, G98/G99 form output, BS 7671 sign-off pack | UK residential installers of any size |
| 4 | OpenSolar | Core platform free | Free design tier with strong UK residential templates | Solo installers under 3 designs a month |
| 5 | HelioScope | US$159/mo Basic, US$259/mo Pro (about £126 to £205) | Bankable C&I yield simulation | Consultancies on commercial rooftops |
| 6 | SolarEdge Designer | Free | Fast string design inside the SolarEdge ecosystem | SolarEdge-heavy installers |
| 7 | PVsyst | CHF 700/user/yr | Reference-grade simulation physics | Independent engineers and lender due diligence |
| 8 | PV*SOL premium | EUR 845/named user/yr + VAT | Detailed 3D shading and thermal simulation | Engineering-led consultancies |
| 9 | Scanifly | Not publicly listed | Drone photogrammetry site capture | Teams with complex or unsafe roofs |
| 10 | PVcase | Not publicly listed, quote only | Terrain-aware ground-mount layout in CAD | Solar farm developers |
The honest read: positions 1 through 5 are genuine contenders for a UK installer. Positions 6 through 10 are specialists, and PVsyst at number seven is a ranking of fit rather than quality, because it produces the most trusted physics on this list and none of the proposal, drafting or sales workflow a UK installer needs.
1. SurgePV
What it does best. SurgePV runs the whole motion in one licence: satellite address to AI-generated 3D roof, 8,760-hour module-level shading, string sizing, BS 7671 labelled single-line diagram, bill of quantities, financial model and white-label proposal. For the UK specifically, three things matter. The SEG library is per supplier rather than a single national rate, so a proposal on Octopus Outgoing and one on a basic mandatory tariff produce different and defensible cash flows. The design canvas raises the G98 to G99 trigger as system size crosses 3.68 kW per phase, before the salesperson has promised a date. And the domestic quote applies the zero rate VAT treatment rather than defaulting to a US sales tax model. The Clara AI assistant takes plain instructions such as “design a 5.4 kW south west array with a 5 kWh battery on an Octopus Outgoing tariff”.
Pricing. £1,030 (US$1,299) per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, so £5,150 for five seats. Individual seats run about £1,510 per year. Enterprise is quoted. Free trial, no credit card.
Who it suits. MCS certified installers and EPCs doing five or more designs a month, teams bidding domestic and commercial from the same office, and shops currently paying more than £150 per seat per month for design plus a second licence for proposals.
Honest limitations. Five real ones, and the first is price. SurgePV is not the cheapest tool in this guide and nowhere close: Easy PV Basic and OpenSolar’s core platform are free, Easy PV Pro is £35 a month, and PVsyst at CHF 700 per user per year and PV*SOL Premium at EUR 845 per named user per year both cost less per seat than SurgePV. What you are paying for is scope in one licence, not a lower licence price. Brand recognition in the UK is thin, because SurgePV launched in 2025 and most Home Counties installers have not heard of it, which matters if a commercial customer’s funder asks whose software produced the yield report. It does not fill and submit the DNO portal forms for you: it flags the G98 or G99 fork and gives you the design data, but the ENA portal submission is still a manual step, and Easy PV is better at that specific job. There is no structural stamping and no drone capture, so an awkward Victorian roof with poor documentation still needs a survey or a Scanifly-style capture upstream. And the component database, while deep on modules and inverters, carries thinner coverage of the smaller UK-specific mounting systems than a UK-only tool does.
Book a SurgePV demo and bring a real UK project so you can judge the SEG modelling and the DNO trigger on your own job rather than a showcase file.
2. Aurora Solar
What it does best. Aurora has the deepest residential design and sales workflow in the English-speaking market, with the largest template library and the most mature roof plane detection. Its automated design tooling copes well with UK suburban housing stock, and the customer-facing presentation quality is genuinely a cut above. If your team already runs Aurora, the marginal gain from switching is smaller than the migration cost.
Pricing. Aurora prices in US dollars: Basic US$135 per user per month billed annually (US$159 monthly) and Premium US$220 billed annually (US$259 monthly). At approximately £0.79 per US dollar that is about £107 to £174 per seat per month, so roughly £6,400 to £10,400 a year for five seats. LIDAR modelling, bankable shade reports and battery modelling are Premium only, plan sets are a separately priced service rather than a plan inclusion, and both plans cap at 1 user and 50 projects a month.
Who it suits. Established residential installers with ten or more designers and an existing Aurora process.
Honest limitations. The UK regulatory layer is thinner than the US layer. There is no MCS Standard Estimation Method output, no SEG supplier library, no G98/G99 trigger and BS 7671 labelling is partial, which pushes the last 10 percent of every job into a spreadsheet or into Easy PV. Per-seat monthly pricing also scales painfully as you hire. Worth conceding, though: a solo UK designer on Aurora Basic pays about £1,280 a year, which is less than a single SurgePV Individual seat. See our Aurora Solar alternative comparison.
3. Easy PV
What it does best. Easy PV was built in Cambridge by Midsummer Energy and it is the most genuinely UK-native tool on this list. It produces MCS compliant performance calculations using the Standard Estimation Method with shading factor, generates the G98 and G99 application data in the format the DNOs expect, produces BS 7671 aligned schematics and handover documentation, and the Basic tier costs nothing. For a domestic installer whose main pain is paperwork rather than 3D modelling, it removes more hours per week than anything else here.
Pricing. Basic is free. Pro is £35 per month. Enterprise pricing is not publicly listed. Midsummer also monetises through component sales rather than the licence fee alone.
Who it suits. UK domestic installers of any size, and any installer of any size who wants a second tool purely for MCS and DNO paperwork.
Honest limitations. It is a UK paperwork and calculation tool first and a design environment second. Shading analysis is nowhere near an 8,760-hour module-level simulation, there is no bankable P90 output for commercial finance, ground mount and larger C&I work sit outside its comfortable range, and the commercial model means the workflow leans toward Midsummer’s own catalogue. It also does not travel: if you design in Ireland or continental Europe as well, you need something else alongside it.
4. OpenSolar
What it does best. The core platform is free, the UK residential templates are polished, the community is large and the learning curve is short. For a solo installer doing two or three domestic jobs a month it is genuinely hard to argue with, and its UK partner integrations are more developed than any other free global tool.
Pricing. The core platform is free, including proposals. From 16 April 2026 OpenSolar began charging for API Access (per project, charged on creation) and for Connectors (a flat monthly fee). Those rates are geo-specific and OpenSolar does not publish them, so we are not going to invent a figure for a UK team. An earlier version of this page quoted £60 to £120 per user per month in add-ons: that figure had no primary source and has been removed.
Who it suits. Solo UK installers and new entrants who need working proposals without a licence commitment.
Honest limitations. Simulation depth is well short of an 8,760-hour module-level model, MCS Standard Estimation Method output and SEG supplier modelling are not native, and the unpublished API and Connector rates make an integrated stack hard to budget. On price alone, though, OpenSolar beats SurgePV outright and there is no way to spin that otherwise. See our OpenSolar alternative analysis.
5. HelioScope
What it does best. HelioScope produces commercial and industrial yield simulation that UK lenders and independent engineers accept without argument. Module-level 8,760-hour modelling, a sensible loss tree and clean export. For a 500 kW distribution warehouse roof in the Midlands it is a defensible choice.
Pricing. HelioScope prices in US dollars: Basic US$159 per month (US$1,620 a year) and Pro US$259 per month (US$2,640 a year), each capped at 1 user and 10 projects a month, with DC design ceilings of 1.25 MW and 5 MW. At approximately £0.79 per US dollar that is about £126 to £205 a seat per month, so roughly £10,400 a year for five Pro seats.
Who it suits. Engineering consultancies and C&I-only teams whose deliverable is a yield report rather than a homeowner proposal.
Honest limitations. No AI 3D roof capture, weak proposal tooling that forces a second licence, no MCS output, no SEG library and no G98/G99 awareness. Read our HelioScope alternative guide before committing five seats.
6. SolarEdge Designer
What it does best. Free, fast, and precise about SolarEdge optimiser and inverter string configurations, including the power optimiser rules that trip up designers working from a generic tool. If a large share of your jobs are SolarEdge, the string validation alone is worth having open.
Pricing. Free.
Who it suits. SolarEdge-heavy UK installers doing residential and light commercial.
Honest limitations. It is a manufacturer tool and it is designed to sell that manufacturer’s hardware. Multi-vendor comparison is not the point of it, MCS and SEG outputs are absent, shading is simplified, and you cannot produce a lender-grade yield report from it. Useful as a second window, not as your platform.
7. PVsyst
What it does best. PVsyst remains the reference simulation engine. When a UK bank or an independent technical adviser wants a second opinion on a 20 MW solar farm in Lincolnshire, the PVsyst loss diagram is the document they ask for by name. Its near-shading and horizon models are well documented and defensible, and that is a real competitive advantage over every cloud tool on this list, ours included.
Pricing. PVsyst bills in Swiss francs: CHF 700 per user per year for the Professional licence, sold as an annual subscription rather than a perpetual licence. Five seats are CHF 3,500, which is less per seat than SurgePV. Education is CHF 420, Training and Research CHF 560, and PVsystCLI is CHF 3,000. Group discounts of 5 to 20 percent apply by quantity.
Who it suits. Independent engineers, technical due diligence teams and developers who need lender-grade reports rather than customer-facing proposals.
Honest limitations. Desktop only, steep learning curve, no proposal generation, no CRM, no collaborative workflow, no BS 7671 output and no MCS anything. It is a physics tool, not a business tool. Our PVsyst alternative guide covers where the tradeoff sits.
8. PV*SOL premium
What it does best. Valentin Software’s PV*SOL premium does 3D shading visualisation better than most, with a genuinely useful animated shading walkthrough that helps in a customer conversation about a chimney or a neighbouring tree. Thermal and electrical modelling depth is strong. Note that perpetual licences bought before 19 November 2024 remain usable indefinitely, but maintenance renewals ended on 1 October 2024 and new purchases are user-based subscriptions, so a consultancy that prefers perpetual licensing can no longer buy one.
Pricing. PVSOL premium is EUR 845 per named user per year plus VAT, so EUR 4,225 plus VAT for five seats. Standard PVSOL is EUR 585. That undercuts SurgePV per seat.
Who it suits. UK engineering-led consultancies that want detailed simulation with a visual output and are comfortable on Windows desktop.
Honest limitations. Desktop install, no MCS Standard Estimation Method output, no SEG supplier library, no G98/G99 handling, no AI 3D from satellite, and white-label proposal output that will not satisfy a sales team. The UK workflow needs manual patching around it.
9. Scanifly
What it does best. Drone photogrammetry that turns a flight into an accurate as-built 3D site model. On a steep slate roof, a listed building or a multi-dormer terrace where sending a person up is the wrong call, capturing from the air is a real safety and accuracy gain.
Pricing. Not publicly listed. Scanifly publishes no price or plan table, so the only way to budget it is to request a quote. Figures circulating in software directories, including the per-project and per-seat ranges this page previously carried, are unverified.
Who it suits. Installers with complex roof stock and an existing drone programme, plus anyone doing survey work on commercial estates.
Honest limitations. It is a capture tool, not a design suite. You still need something downstream for simulation, BS 7671 labelled SLDs and proposals. UK weather and CAA operational rules also limit usable flying days more than the vendor’s US material implies.
10. PVcase
What it does best. Terrain-aware ground-mount layout inside AutoCAD, which matters on UK solar farm sites where a modest slope changes row spacing and pile schedules. Strong civil integration and good handling of irregular field boundaries.
Pricing. Not publicly listed. PVcase sells by quote only and also requires an AutoCAD licence alongside it. Any per-seat figure you see quoted for PVcase online is an unverified third-party estimate rather than a vendor price.
Who it suits. UK solar farm developers and ground-mount EPCs.
Honest limitations. No residential capability at all, no proposal workflow, and it assumes an AutoCAD-competent operator. For rooftop work it is both overkill and a poor fit, and almost every reader of this article is outside its target market.
Get a free site assessment. Our engineers visit within 24 hours and send a custom savings proposal in 48 hours, no cost, no obligation. Get your free quote →
Pricing in Pounds for a Five-Person Team
| Platform | Entry | Mid | Five seats per year | What is bundled |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SurgePV | £1,510/user/yr | £1,030/user/yr (5-User Team) | £5,150 | BS 7671, MCS-aware proposals, SEG library, AI 3D, 8,760-hr, SLD, BOQ, DXF/DWG |
| Easy PV | Basic free | Pro £35/month | £0 on Basic, £420 for one Pro seat | MCS calcs, G98/G99 data, BS 7671 handover pack |
| SolarEdge Designer | Free | Free | £0 | SolarEdge string design only |
| OpenSolar | Core platform free | Core platform free | £0, plus unpublished API and Connector rates from 16 Apr 2026 | Free design and proposals, integration pricing not published |
| PVsyst | CHF 700/user/yr | n/a | CHF 3,500 | Simulation only |
| HelioScope | US$159/mo Basic | US$259/mo Pro | US$13,200 (about £10,400) | Engineering depth, weak proposals |
| PV*SOL premium | EUR 585 standard | EUR 845/named user/yr + VAT | EUR 4,225 + VAT | Desktop simulation, weak proposals |
| Aurora Solar | US$135/user/mo Basic, billed annually | US$220/user/mo Premium, billed annually | US$13,200 (about £10,400) on Premium, US$8,100 (about £6,400) on Basic | Residential workflow; LIDAR, bankable shade and battery on Premium; plan sets priced separately |
| Scanifly | Not publicly listed | Not publicly listed | Not publicly listed | Drone capture only |
| PVcase | Not publicly listed | Not publicly listed | Not publicly listed | Ground mount CAD only |
Non-sterling prices above are the vendor’s own billing currency. Sterling figures alongside them are approximate, converted at about £0.79 per US dollar, and will move with the rate.
The comparison most UK installers should actually run is not SurgePV against Aurora. It is SurgePV against the stack of Easy PV for paperwork plus OpenSolar for proposals plus a HelioScope seat for the commercial jobs. On current prices that stack is startlingly cheap: Easy PV Basic and OpenSolar cost nothing, and one HelioScope Pro seat is about £2,080 a year, so you can cover a lot of ground for well under half of SurgePV’s £5,150. What you buy with the extra is one login instead of three, one set of data, and no manual re-keying between tools. If your job mix is purely domestic and under three installs a month, the free stack wins outright and we would tell you so on a call.
UK Design Details Most Software Gets Wrong
Three specifics decide whether a British design survives contact with reality.
Diffuse irradiance is the majority of your resource. In much of the UK, over half of annual plane-of-array irradiance arrives as diffuse rather than direct beam radiation. Tools tuned on sunbelt data can overstate the penalty of a non-optimal azimuth, which is why east-west splits perform better here than a naive model suggests, and why a west-facing plane is often worth installing rather than skipping. Check what transposition model your tool uses and whether it is running measured UK data or an interpolated global dataset.
Shading factor is a required output, not a nice one. The MCS estimation method wants an explicit shading factor derived from a horizon assessment, not an unstated allowance buried in the yield number. If your tool cannot show the customer the shading factor it applied, your MCS documentation is incomplete regardless of how good the underlying simulation is.
Voltage rise on the AC side is the quiet failure mode. BS 7671 limits the voltage drop, but on a long service cable in a rural property the problem at commissioning is the opposite: the inverter pushes local voltage above the statutory upper limit and trips on over-voltage. This is a cable sizing and connection point problem you solve at design time, not a fault you diagnose in month three. Our sister engineering team covers the arithmetic in their solar inverter sizing guide.
⚠️ Watch out
If your proposal template still carries a Feed-in Tariff generation payment line, remove it. The FIT closed to new applicants in March 2019 and only the Smart Export Guarantee applies to new systems. Equally, check the VAT line: the zero rate on domestic solar and battery storage is legislated to end on 31 March 2027.
Mistakes UK Installers Make Choosing Design Software
-
1
Shipping a performance estimate without the Standard Estimation Method and shading factor. MCS audit sampling picks this up, and a corrective action notice can hold up new registrations while you rework templates.
-
2
Quoting one national SEG rate. The gap between a basic mandatory tariff near 4p and a competitive one above 15p changes lifetime income by thousands and changes the right system size, not just the payback figure.
-
3
Missing the G98 to G99 fork at 3.68 kW per phase. A homeowner promised a two week install who actually needs G99 pre-approval meets a months-long wait, and that is where cancellations come from.
-
4
Getting the VAT treatment wrong on a domestic quote. Zero rate applies to qualifying installations on residential accommodation until 31 March 2027. A template defaulting to 20 percent loses you the job on price alone.
-
5
Assuming a stack of cheap tools costs more than one bundled platform. Often it does not. Easy PV Basic and OpenSolar's core platform are free, and Easy PV Pro is £35 a month, so price the stack properly before you assume bundling saves money. The case for one platform is fewer logins and no re-keying between tools, not a lower licence bill.
These patterns are not UK-specific in kind, only in detail. Our writeup on common mistakes EPC companies make in rooftop solar covers the wider set.
Should a UK Installer Standardise on SurgePV?
- ✓ You design 5+ UK projects a month
- ✓ You bid commercial rooftops alongside domestic
- ✓ You want BS 7671 labelled SLDs without a second licence
- ✓ Your current per-seat bill exceeds £150 a month
- ✗ You are domestic-only under 3 installs a month (Easy PV Basic plus OpenSolar's core platform is free)
- ✗ Your deliverable is lender due diligence (PVsyst)
- ✗ You build solar farms on sloped land (PVcase)
- ✗ Your team has deep Aurora process debt and stable headcount
Verdict. For a five-person UK installer covering domestic and commercial, SurgePV wins on bundled scope and on cost per finished project, though not on licence price, where PVsyst, PV*SOL, Easy PV and OpenSolar all come in lower. For a two-person domestic outfit in Devon doing eight installs a quarter, Easy PV Basic plus OpenSolar costs nothing at all and covers the job, and we would say so on a sales call.
How Heaven Green Energy and SurgePV Help UK Teams
Heaven Green Energy has delivered more than 10,000 solar installations, and our engineering group builds the software we use ourselves. SurgePV came out of that: a design suite written by people who had to produce inspection-ready drawings on deadline. For UK teams the entry points are:
- Shadow analysis for 8,760-hour module-level shading and the horizon assessment behind the MCS shading factor.
- Heaven Designs permit design when you need a stamped drawing package produced by a dedicated engineering team.
- Structural and civil engineering for wind uplift and roof loading verification on commercial buildings.
- QuickEstimate proposal generator if your gap is sales follow-up rather than design.
If you also run projects outside the UK, our commercial solar and industrial solar pages set out how the same design stack carries across markets. Broader market context sits with the IEA renewables tracker, IRENA country profiles and Solar Energy UK.
Related Solar Design Software Guides
- Solar Design Software 2026: 7 Tools Compared and Priced
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- Best Solar Software UK: The Full Stack
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- Solar Design Software Germany: Top Tools
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Compare Other Markets and Tool Categories
- Best solar design software in Ireland
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- Best solar shading analysis software in the UK
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best solar design software for the UK in 2026?
SurgePV ranks first on our 4-point UK bench with 36 of 40, at about £1,030 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan. It covers BS 7671 labelling, MCS-aware proposal output, a SEG supplier tariff library and the G98 versus G99 trigger in one licence with proposals included. Aurora Solar scores 32 and is the closest full-workflow rival. Easy PV scores 31 on a free Basic tier, with Pro at only £35 a month, which makes it the right answer for a small domestic-only installer, and OpenSolar’s core platform is free outright.
Does UK solar design software need to support BS 7671 rather than the NEC?
Yes. UK electrical work is inspected against BS 7671, the IET Wiring Regulations, currently the 18th Edition with Amendment 2, with Section 712 covering solar PV supply systems. Isolation, RCD selection, surge protection and prosumer installation rules all differ from NEC 690 conventions, so a drawing set labelled to NEC practice needs redrawing and in some cases the underlying design changes too, not just the labels.
What is the difference between a G98 and a G99 connection?
G98 covers micro-generation up to and including 16 A per phase, which for solar means roughly 3.68 kW per phase. It is a notification process, so you can install and inform the distribution network operator afterwards. Anything above that threshold falls under G99 and requires pre-approval from the network operator before energisation, with typical turnaround running to several months in constrained areas. Your design tool should raise this fork before the customer is quoted a date.
How much does solar design software cost in the UK?
Bundled full-workflow platforms sit around £1,030 per user per year for SurgePV’s 5-User Team plan, so £5,150 for five seats. Aurora bills in US dollars at $135 per user per month Basic and $220 Premium on annual billing, about £107 to £174 a seat per month at roughly £0.79 per dollar. HelioScope is $159 a month on Basic and $259 on Pro, about £126 to £205. SolarEdge Designer is free, Easy PV is free on Basic with Pro at £35 a month and Enterprise not publicly listed, and OpenSolar’s core platform is free with API Access and Connector rates chargeable from 16 April 2026 but not published. PVsyst is CHF 700 per user per year and PV*SOL premium is EUR 845 per named user per year plus VAT, both cheaper per seat than SurgePV. Scanifly, PVcase and RatedPower publish no pricing at all.
Does design software need to model the Smart Export Guarantee per supplier?
Yes, if you want the proposal to be accurate. SEG rates in 2026 span roughly 3p to 5p per kWh on basic mandatory tariffs up to well above 15p on competitive and time-of-export tariffs. That spread changes not only the payback figure but the right system size and whether a battery makes sense. A tool applying one national export rate will misprice most quotes it produces.
Is VAT on domestic solar still zero rated in the UK?
Yes, currently. The installation of qualifying energy saving materials, including solar panels and standalone battery storage, is zero rated for VAT on residential accommodation in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, legislated to run to 31 March 2027, after which the reduced 5 percent rate returns unless the relief is extended. Confirm the current position on gov.uk before quoting, because this is the line most inherited templates get wrong.
Do I need PVsyst if I already use a cloud design platform?
Usually not for domestic or small commercial work. PVsyst is needed when a lender, insurer or independent technical adviser specifically asks for a PVsyst loss diagram during due diligence, which in the UK typically starts at the multi-megawatt solar farm scale. Below that, a cloud platform running an 8,760-hour module-level simulation with P50, P75 and P90 outputs is commonly accepted, and it also produces the customer-facing proposal that PVsyst, as a simulation package, does not set out to produce.
What is SurgePV’s biggest weakness for UK installers?
Price against the free and cheap alternatives, brand recognition, and DNO form submission. On licence cost SurgePV loses to Easy PV Basic and OpenSolar, which are free, and to PVsyst at CHF 700 a seat and PV*SOL premium at EUR 845 a named user. SurgePV launched in 2025 and is not yet a name UK funders and network operators recognise the way they recognise Aurora or PVsyst, which can add a conversation to a financing review. It flags the G98 or G99 fork and gives you the data, but it does not submit the ENA portal application for you, where Easy PV is stronger. It also does no drone capture and no structural stamping, so complex roofs still need an upstream survey step.
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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.