A transition to a sustainable future is not always a smooth ride. Companies that design and build solar plant infrastructure face numerous technical challenges, like assessing slope accuracy and site suitability or simply ensuring that the chosen module type meets power requirements before presenting the final layout to the client.

Moreover, manual design processes slow the development of large-scale projects and frequently introduce errors. This was the experience of GVC Ingegneria, an Italian company that specializes in designing and implementing ground-mounted photovoltaic and agrivoltaic plants with capacities ranging from 1 to 500 megawatts.

GVC Ingegneria needed a tool to handle the entire design process from A to Z, and that’s when PVcase stepped in. So, read the article to learn how GVC Ingegneria tackled technical challenges by adopting PVcase Ground Mount.

Technical challenges in renewable energy projects

Developing large-scale solar projects is complex and demanding at every stage, starting right from the initial planning phases. GVC Ingegneria faced numerous challenges in its solar design workflow that compromised quality and consumed valuable time. Here are six key technical challenges that GVC Ingegneria encountered:

  1. Replication errors and layout accuracy: for large-scale projects exceeding 5-10 megawatts, manually replicating layout blocks often led to errors, affecting the overall accuracy and quality of the designs.
  2. Time inefficiencies in preliminary layouts: creating preliminary layouts for large projects was time-consuming, taking anywhere from 1 to 3 days.
  3. Workflow integration and comprehensive design tools: the company needed a tool that could handle the entire design process, from the preliminary phase to detailed executive design, including electrical components.
  4. Economic constraints and cost management: it was essential to manage tight project budgets and economic pressures while maintaining high-quality layouts.
  5. Meeting different client expectations in Italy: the company needed to develop customized solutions tailored to specific project requirements while meeting demanding client expectations.
  6. Specific market impacted by terrain: Italy’s diverse landscape, including mountainous regions and varying climates, presented unique challenges in site selection and layout optimization.

The company’s challenges required a sophisticated solution that would seamlessly integrate into its design workflow. PVcase stepped into meeting these needs and impacting the company’s results. Let’s take a more detailed look at the transformative effect the PVcase Ground Mount integration had on GVC Ingegneria.

Solution: integration with PVcase Ground Mount

GVC Ingegneria integrated PVcase Ground Mount into its workflow to tackle technical challenges and improve the design process — from the preliminary phase of site and module selection to the detailed executive design, including electrical components.

Shading Analysis was a turning point for the company, significantly boosting efficiency. Traditionally, engineers used separate, often cumbersome tools to predict shading on solar panels, which slowed down the design process and increased the risk of errors and data inconsistencies. Now, Shading Analysis allows engineers to precisely evaluate site-specific factors, such as terrain and potential shading from natural features, leading to optimized and viable project layouts.

According to Carlo Restaino, an engineer at GVC Ingegneria, other crucial features of the solution included Civil Analysis, ensuring compliance with local guidelines, and Capacity Iteration, which calculated whether a specific power capacity could fit within a given area.

 “The biggest challenge was to understand whether the tracker structure chosen by the client was suitable and in which areas it was not suitable due to the slopes,” explained Carlo Restaino, a partner at GVC Ingegneria.

The PVcase tools helped the company evaluate the shading of trackers to avoid final performance losses.

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Results and impact on GVC Ingegneria operations

Since adopting PVcase Ground Mount, GVC Ingegneria has transformed its design process — from reducing errors and increasing efficiency to tailoring the best solutions for every client’s need, leading to exceptional project results. 

Here are the 5 key results PVcase tools helped GVC Ingegneria achieve:

  1. Better design quality: PVcase Ground Mount tools optimized the process of layout configurations and reduced errors. By minimizing costly rework, the software significantly improved the overall design quality.
  2. Significantly improved effectiveness: PVcase Ground Mount delivered a complete set of tools covering every design aspect, from site selection to electrical layout, ensuring a smooth workflow and precise fulfillment of client expectations. Using the tools helped increase workflow efficiency and reduce the time for preliminary layouts from 1-3 days to just 2-3 hours.
  3. Compliance with local guidelines: the Civil Analysis tool ensured compliance with Italian Agrivoltaic Guidelines by maintaining construction at the required height of 2.10 meters.
  4. Effective customer support: PVcase’s dedicated customer support team provides fast, personalized assistance complemented by instructional videos from PVcase Academy. Whenever a need arose, PVcase eagerly incorporates feedback to resolve issues, fix bugs, or develop new features, ensuring prompt and effective solutions.

The software’s advanced features and time-saving capabilities have boosted workflow efficiency and improved the quality of photovoltaic and agrivoltaic plant designs. This has allowed GVC Ingegneria to deliver top-notch, compliant, and efficient renewable energy solutions to clients in Italy. PVcase Ground Mount’s benefits have enhanced operational efficiency and reinforced GVC Ingegneria’s reputation for reliable renewable energy projects.

“Thanks to PVcase Ground Mount and the features of civil analysis, shading analysis, and capacity iteration combined, we are able to offer the end client a layout with various options so they can choose the best one before proceeding with the final and executive phases. Offering a range of layout options expands our design pipeline, almost doubling it. 

I would certainly recommend this software to anyone working in the renewable energy sector, especially because continuous updates and user feedback are very important to PVcase, so the functionalities and the software are always being updated and improved,” concludes Carlo Restaino.

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Conclusion

Each market and location presents unique challenges for developing solar energy infrastructure. By utilizing advanced software solutions like PVcase Ground Mount, companies can enhance the efficiency of their design processes. 

GVC Ingegneria faced challenges due to inefficient design workflows and errors in large-scale project layouts. It also had to deal with demanding Italian terrains that required advanced site-specific planning.

By integrating PVcase Ground Mount, the company achieved outstanding results. Tools such as Shading and Civil Analysis, along with Capacity Iteration, effectively addressed site-specific challenges, creating high-quality, tailored solutions for the Italian market.