Remote Site Assessment for Solar

Aurora Solar turned site assessment from a field job into a desk workflow, which matters because sales speed is often the difference between winning and losing a residential solar deal. Instead of sending someone to climb on a roof with a tape measure, an installer can type in an address, build a 3D roof model from aerial imagery and LIDAR, estimate shade and production, and generate a proposal before a competitor even schedules a visit.

• This is mostly a soft cost story. In solar, hardware keeps getting cheaper, so labor around selling, measuring, designing, and permitting becomes a bigger share of total cost. Software that removes one truck roll can improve both installer margin and salesperson throughput.
  1 sacra 5 nrel
• Aurora packaged remote measurement into a broader workflow, not just a design feature. The same model feeds panel layout, production estimates, financing options, customer proposals, and permit ready plan sets, which makes it easier for one installer to standardize its whole sales to engineering process inside one system.
  1 sacra 2 aurorasolar 3 aurorasolar
• Competitors show the market split. HelioScope built design software to reduce soft costs for engineering teams, while OpenSolar pushed free design and shade tools to widen access for smaller installers. Aurora sits between them with a more complete sales and design stack aimed at teams that want speed, accuracy, and workflow control in one product.
  1 sacra 7 enphase 8 opensolar 9 opensolar

The next phase is turning remote design into the operating layer for solar installers. As more projects start with an address lookup instead of a site visit, the winning platforms will be the ones that own the full chain from quote to permit to install, because that is where software can keep removing labor from every project.