Choosing a design mode

Every launch begins with two questions: how the modules are mounted, and how the plant is wired. They are asked in the SolarLayout · New design window before the main window opens, and Continue must be clicked to get any further — closing the window instead quits the launch.

The choice belongs to the window. It decides which input cards exist, how units are placed on the ground, what equipment is counted, and what the Summary view's rows are called. It cannot be changed inside the window — to work in a different design you open a second window, which the last section covers.

The New design window

Two segmented controls, each with the left option selected by default:

A summary card under them updates as you click. Its title names the combination, a chain line shows the equipment path from module to control room, and a note describes the mounting:

The fixed-tilt note reads "South-facing tilted panels on fixed racks. Tilt and row pitch come from the site latitude."; the tracker note reads "Horizontal N–S axis, panels sweep east to west. You set the E–W pitch." MMS is the module mounting structure; SMB is the string monitoring box; ICR is the inverter control room building.

The footer reminds you that you can switch later with Move to String / Central Window. Continue opens the main window for the combination; the window title names it, and the ribbon's design chip reads it back — Fixed tilt · String inverter ▾, Tracker · Central inverter ▾ and so on.

Fixed tilt or single-axis tracker

This is a decision about the structure, and it is the one that changes the plant's geometry.

Fixed tilt. Modules sit at one angle on static racks, facing the equator — south in the northern hemisphere, north in the southern. Rows run east to west and repeat northward at a row pitch. The tilt and the pitch are derived from the site latitude unless you override them, and the pitch is what keeps one row from shading the row behind it in midwinter.

Single-axis tracker. Modules are carried on a horizontal, north–south axis and rotate about it through the day, so the panels sweep from facing east in the morning to facing west in the afternoon. There is no fixed tilt to set: what you set instead is the rotation limit the structure allows. Tracker units are long in the north–south direction and repeat eastward at an east–west pitch.

The two mountings are configured through different cards on the Array tab, under a read-only MOUNTING chip that names the one you chose:

String inverter or central inverter

This is a decision about the electrical topology, and it changes what is counted and how cables are run rather than where units sit on the ground.

Both topologies then carry medium-voltage cables from each control room to the main control room, over a shared trunk rather than parallel runs. See Cable routing.

What changes in the interface

The design does not hide optional extras. It decides which input cards are built at all, how several labels and Summary rows read, and how a few pieces of equipment are placed.

Mounting

Electrical

The full row list, in order, is in Summary rows.

Moving to a different design

The design belongs to the window. Two controls open the New design window again — the design chip in the ribbon, and File ▸ Move to String / Central Window… (Ctrl+N). Two things about them the menu item's name understates:

• They switch the mounting as well. What opens is the same window you chose from at launch, both controls included, so the new design can be fixed tilt where the one you came from was a tracker plant.
• They open a new, independent window. The window you came from stays open beside it — the chip's own tooltip says so. This is not a mode switch applied to the work in progress, which is why two designs can be held on screen at once and read against each other.

File ▸ New Project (Ctrl+Shift+N) is different: it opens a fresh window at the defaults in the same design. To compare two topologies on the same site, open the second design from the chip, load the same boundary file in each window, leave the shared inputs identical, and compare the two Summary views side by side.

Where to go next