Best AutoCAD Solar Plugins for Commercial Projects (2026)

If you draw solar strings by hand in AutoCAD, you already know the problem. Stringing a 500 kW commercial rooftop takes hours of repetitive drafting — placing strings, routing homeruns, measuring cable lengths, generating tags. The work isn't difficult. It's tedious, and doing it project after project wears engineers down.

Several AutoCAD plugins now automate this work. This post compares the five worth evaluating in 2026 for commercial rooftop and ground mount solar drafting.

Disclosure: We built one of these tools (Leaf/Branch). We've tried to be honest about all of them. If something is inaccurate, let us know.

What to Look For in an AutoCAD Solar Plugin

Before comparing tools, consider what matters for your workflow:

• Stringing automation quality — Does the output require significant cleanup, or is it construction-document-ready?
• Speed per project — Including learning curve, not just marketing claims
• Rework tolerance — How painful is it when a design changes mid-project?
• Pricing transparency — Can you evaluate the tool before a sales conversation?
• Scope — Does it do drafting only, or does it also make engineering calculations? (This matters for liability.)
• Platform — AutoCAD only, or also BricsCAD/Revit?

The Five AutoCAD Solar Plugins

1. Leaf/Branch

Best for: Fast stringing and homerun routing at volume. Engineers who want to automate the drafting grind without changing how they work.

Branch focuses on four things: panel stringing with voltage window compliance, homerun routing with K-means optimization, circuit and cable length export, and tag generation. The full workflow takes about 3 minutes per project once learned. Because it's fast, rework costs nothing — delete and rerun.

The SolarEdge Designer PDF import is unique to Branch. If you design SolarEdge systems, you can import the stringing plan PDF directly instead of copying string assignments from a second monitor.

Branch does not generate SLDs, perform wire sizing, calculate voltage drop, or produce energy models. It automates drafting — engineering decisions stay with the engineer.

Pricing: $299/user/month or $3,299/user/year. Published, transparent. 14-day free trial, no credit card.

Platform: AutoCAD 2018-2026 on Windows (including Architecture, MEP, Electrical editions).

2. PVComplete / PVCAD / Enact Solar

Best for: Teams that need SLD generation integrated with stringing, or have existing PVCAD workflows.

The original AutoCAD solar plugin. PVComplete was acquired by Shoals Technologies in 2021 and later merged into Enact Solar. It offers the broadest feature set among AutoCAD solar plugins, including SLD generation and carport-specific design tools.

The trade-off is onboarding time. Engineers report weeks-to-months before reaching productive speed, and output that needs significant manual cleanup. The product's future development direction is uncertain under its new ownership, since neither Shoals (utility-scale eBOS) nor Enact (asset management) has commercial rooftop drafting as a core business.

Pricing: Sales-gated. Estimated $2,000-5,000/year based on industry reports.

Platform: AutoCAD on Windows.

3. Virto.CAD (Virto Solar)

Best for: BricsCAD users, or teams working across European and international markets.

Virto.CAD supports both AutoCAD and BricsCAD — a genuine differentiator if your firm doesn't use AutoCAD. European in origin with growing international presence, it covers commercial rooftop and ground mount projects.

Virto Solar publishes aggressively across multiple platforms, which is why you may have encountered them at the top of search results for "AutoCAD solar plugin." Their product covers a wider design scope than Branch but with less public documentation on specific automation capabilities. See our detailed comparison.

Pricing: Sales-gated. Estimated ~$5,100/year (may include AutoCAD license bundle).

Platform: AutoCAD + BricsCAD.

4. PV Rocket

Best for: Engineers who want voltage drop calculations and wire sizing integrated into AutoCAD alongside drafting.

PV Rocket combines stringing automation with engineering calculations — voltage drop, wire sizing, and SLD generation — inside AutoCAD and AutoCAD Electrical. If you want calculations and drafting in one tool, this is the differentiator.

The trade-off: combining engineering calculations with drafting automation means the tool is making engineering decisions on your behalf. Depending on your firm's workflow and liability comfort, that's either a major advantage or something you'd prefer to handle separately.

Pricing: Sales-gated. No publicly available pricing.

Platform: AutoCAD + AutoCAD Electrical.

5. PVcase Roof Mount

Best for: Enterprise teams with utility-scale DNA who also do rooftop work, and budget for enterprise software.

PVcase dominates utility-scale ground mount design and is expanding into the rooftop market. It offers deep engineering simulation — terrain analysis, pile calculations, bankable energy models — and recently added rooftop capabilities.

For commercial rooftop projects where you need strings placed and circuit lengths calculated, PVcase's utility-scale power comes with utility-scale complexity and pricing. Engineers in the commercial rooftop space consistently describe it as overkill for their projects. See our detailed comparison.

Pricing: Enterprise. Estimated $6,000-15,000+/year.

Platform: AutoCAD + Revit.

Quick Comparison Table

| Tool | Stringing | SLDs | Eng. Calcs | BricsCAD | SolarEdge Import | Published Pricing | Free Trial | |------|-----------|------|------------|----------|------------------|-------------------|------------| | Leaf/Branch | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | $299/user/mo | 14 days | | PVComplete/Enact | Yes | Yes | Limited | No | No | No | No | | Virto.CAD | Yes | Varies | Varies | Yes | No | No | Unknown | | PV Rocket | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | Unknown | | PVcase Roof Mount | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |

How to Actually Evaluate

Marketing pages (including this one) can only tell you so much. The real test is running your next project through each tool. Download trials where available, use your own drawings, and compare the experience on the project types you actually work on.

If you're drawing strings by hand today, any of these tools will save time. The question is which one fits your specific workflow, team size, budget, and platform requirements.

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Start a 14-day free trial of Branch — no credit card, no sales call. Run your next project through it and decide.