Ground-Mount Solar Design
Ground-mount solar design:
terrain to construction in one workflow
PVX.Cad reads your actual topo surface inside AutoCAD and produces construction-ready ground-mount designs. Grading optimization, layout, cable routing, and pile coordinates from a single file. No rework at construction.
Request a Demo + Free TrialWhy ground-mount designs get reworked at construction
On sloped sites, earthwork accounts for 15-40% of total project cost. Yet most ground-mount design tools place rows on a simplified surface and leave grading analysis for later. By the time a civil engineer reviews the earthwork, changing row positions means rerunning the electrical design. So the civil team adapts to the layout instead of the other way around.
The result: earthwork volumes that could have been a fraction of the final number, cut depths that exceed what the substrate can handle, and change orders at construction when the site doesn't match the model. Ground-mount projects on complex terrain are especially exposed because pile installation depth varies dramatically across slopes, and a single grading approach rarely fits the entire site.
With interconnection queues pushing developers to more difficult terrain, the gap between design assumptions and construction reality is growing. Engineering teams need ground-mount design tools that analyze terrain before committing to a layout.
PVX.Cad: terrain-first ground-mount design
Map every gradient before layout
PVX.Cad reconstructs a grid surface from your terrain data (LiDAR, contours, survey points) at configurable resolution. Slope analysis runs across the full site envelope before a single row is placed.
Know the substrate before the bulldozer does
Soil hardness classification maps rock, clay, and mixed zones across the site. The grading strategy for rock and the grading strategy for soil are fundamentally different. PVX.Cad shows you which is which.
Compare three grading approaches in minutes
Full-terrain smoothing, pile-adaptive grading, and table splitting evaluated side by side with real cost calculations. Choose the approach that fits your site, not the only approach your tool supports.
One site. Three grading approaches. $727K difference.
On a utility-scale project with 44% hard rock and slopes reaching 40-45%, PVX.Cad compared three grading approaches on the same site, same panels, same capacity:
| Approach | Cut Volume | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Full-terrain smoothing | 118,225 m3 | $1,062,481 |
| Pile-adaptive grading | 48,109 m3 | $438,046 |
| Table splitting + pile-adaptive | 34,819 m3 | $335,376 |
70% less earthwork. $727K saved. Max cut depth reduced from 3.0m to 0.8m. Every pile brought under 4m without losing DC power.
Construction-ready outputs, zero rework
Ground-mount construction requires precise pile coordinates that account for actual site topography. PVX.Cad exports everything your civil, electrical, and construction teams need from one AutoCAD DWG:
- ✓ Grading contours and cut/fill surfaces (DWG, LandXML)
- ✓ Pile coordinates with terrain-corrected elevations (CSV)
- ✓ DC cable schedules with voltage drop per string (CSV)
- ✓ PVsyst-compatible export with terrain-corrected module positions
- ✓ Full ground-mount design package in one AutoCAD file
3.8 TWp of utility-scale solar capacity designed with PVX.AI across 40+ countries. Terrain-first ground-mount design inside AutoCAD.
See PVX.Cad on your terrain data
Book a 30-minute demo with your terrain file. We'll run grading analysis, layout optimization, and cable routing live. Every demo includes a 2-week free trial.