Utility-scale solar continues to scale rapidly but the industry is entering a phase where design certainty, not just capacity, is becoming critical. As projects grow larger and financial margins tighten, early-stage engineering decisions are carrying increasing weight not only for technical performance but for long-term investor confidence, says Paul Nel , Chief Executive Officer of 7SecondSolar.
The global mandate for utility-scale solar capacity continues to grow exponentially. For energy investors and engineers, translating this scale into tangible financial certainty increasingly demands a shift towards fast, iterative design, particularly in the earliest stages of project development. Using computational design software, AutoPV, 7SecondSolar and Zutari recently conducted a study highlighting how seemingly minor design changes specifically in cable sizing and plant configuration can yield millions in financial advantage over a projects lifecycle. With AutoPV, multiple design iterations were produced in minutes at construction-level detail, allowing the impact of design changes to be quantified in terms of cost savings and project lifetime yield.
The study modelled a 330 MWp solar plant under nine different design scenarios, focusing on equipment placement, corridor widths and cable sizes. The findings show that total cable cost varied by as much as 44, amounting to a difference of US3,39 million about R64,4 million while the annual revenue loss from cable losses showed a maximum variation of US193 349 per year about R3,7 million per year.
