PDF report walkthrough
What's in the SolarLayout PDF report, page by page — your bid-pack-ready deliverable.
The PDF report is your bid-pack-ready deliverable. It captures the layout drawing, the design parameters, and (when energy yield was calculated) the per-plant production forecast — in one printable document. Most users send it directly to the bid committee or to the customer.
Exporting the PDF
Open the Download tab
Below the canvas, switch to the Download tab in the bottom panel. After a layout finishes, the PDF row activates alongside KMZ and DXF.
Pick a save location
The save dialog suggests <project>-<run>.pdf. Filesystem-illegal
characters in either name are replaced with -. Change it if you
need a different naming convention for your bid pack.
Wait a few seconds
The PDF is built by the cloud rollup pass alongside the KMZ and DXF artefacts; by the time the layout finishes, the file already exists in storage. Saving it locally is a single presigned-URL fetch — usually under 5 seconds.
Share
Email it, drop it in Slack, or attach it to your bid submission system.
What's in the report
The PDF is 2 to 4 pages depending on what you generated:
| Pages | When you get this | Sheet size |
|---|---|---|
| 2 pages | Layout only — no energy yield calculated | P1 = A1, P2 = A3 |
| 3 pages | Layout + energy yield (PVGIS API, no hourly weather CSV) | P1 = A1, P2-P3 = A3 |
| 4 pages | Layout + energy yield + monthly breakdown (hourly weather CSV loaded) | P1 = A1, P2-P4 = A3 |
Page 1 is always A1 (33.11 × 23.39 in) so the layout drawing prints at engineering scale; the remaining pages are A3 landscape.
Page 1 — Plant layout (A1)
The to-scale layout drawing with title block, suitable for plotting on an A1 printer. Includes:
- The plant layout drawing itself — boundaries, panel tables, ICR buildings, string inverters / SMBs, lightning arresters, exclusion zones, and cable routes if cable routing ran.
- A small key plan inset showing where each plant sits on the site.
- North arrow.
- PLANT DETAILS panel: per-plant capacity, table count, module count, tilt, GCR, pitch.
- LEGEND panel: colour key for the drawing.
- Title block: SolarLayout wordmark, drawing number, page number.
Page 2 — Layout summary (A3)
Title: LAYOUT SUMMARY REPORT.
Two stacked sections:
- PLANT LAYOUT SUMMARY — per-plant rows with area, table count, module count, capacity, pitch, and (when cable routing ran) cable totals.
- DESIGN PARAMETERS — the inputs that drove this layout: design type, module orientation, GCR target, tilt, row pitch rule, table dimensions, module spec, inverter spec.
This is the page a bid reviewer reads first.
Page 3 — Energy yield (A3, only when energy was calculated)
Title: ENERGY YIELD REPORT.
Top half is split two-column:
- PERFORMANCE RATIO BREAKDOWN — line-by-line PR components per IEC 61724-1.
- IRRADIANCE & DEGRADATION INPUTS — site lat/long, tilt, azimuth, weather source, first-year degradation, annual degradation, plant lifetime, combined uncertainty.
Bottom: PER-PLANT ENERGY SUMMARY with year-1 yield, specific yield, CUF, and lifetime production for each plant.
When you load a custom hourly weather CSV, this page is Page 3 of 4 and Page 4 adds the monthly + 25-year tables. When you use the PVGIS API directly, the same content compresses to a single Page 3 of 3 that also embeds the 25-year split.
Page 4 — Monthly + 25-year forecast (A3, only with hourly weather)
Title: ENERGY YIELD — MONTHLY + 25-YEAR FORECAST.
- MONTHLY ENERGY BREAKDOWN — IEC 61724-1 — YEAR 1 — 12 rows of per-month production with the IEC PR adjusted for that month's ambient temperature.
- <N>-YEAR GENERATION FORECAST — P-VALUES AT σ = <x>% — year- by-year production with P50 / P75 / P90 columns. Lifetime defaults to 25 years; configurable in Energy parameters.
This page only renders when the run used a custom hourly weather CSV (see PVGIS vs custom CSV) — that's the path that produces hour-by-hour data we can roll up to monthly.
What's NOT in the PDF
- Bill of materials by part number — module/inverter counts are in the summary, but the PDF doesn't generate a procurement BoM.
- Cable cross-sections — cable totals are in the summary when cable routing ran; cross-sections aren't sized in v0.1.
- Site-specific civil details — pile schedules, foundation drawings, civil clearances. Use DXF for the engineering hand-off.
When to use the PDF
The PDF is the right export when:
- You're submitting a bid to SECI, a state DISCOM, or an IPP.
- You're showing a client what their site can produce.
- An LTA or lender wants a read-only summary they can mark up.
- You want a single artefact that captures both the drawing and the yield calc.
For everything else — Google Earth review, CAD work, hour-level yield modelling — use one of the other exports:
- KMZ export for Google Earth.
- DXF export for AutoCAD-compatible engineering.
- 15-minute CSV for time-series yield analysis (only available when you ran with a custom hourly weather CSV).