The drawing types, by installation
Rooftop residential and multi-residential: panel layouts per house type, string layouts, single-line diagrams and mounting arrangements — becoming a multi-site programme on a housing development.
Rooftop commercial and industrial: larger roof arrays with multi-inverter electrical design, roof penetration and mounting details, and cable routing — with the structural roof interface a key consideration.
Ground-mount and solar farms: array field layout, mounting or tracker arrangement, DC/AC electrical layouts, cable routing and trenching, civils for site infrastructure, and the site as-built — the closest solar comes to full infrastructure project work.
For more details, visit What CAD drawings do you need for a solar PV project?.
Where PV design ends and drawing production begins
A solar project involves real engineering: the PV system design, string sizing, inverter selection, structural and wind loading, and the grid connection (G99/DNO) design. Those are decisions made by the solar designer and electrical engineer, and responsibility stays there.
Drawing production is separate. It takes that design, plus the roof or site survey, and produces the layout drawings, electrical drawings, civils and as-builts. This is the part that outsources cleanly — production work that benefits from consistency and capacity, carrying no design liability as long as the boundary is respected. A good CAD partner is explicit about this line.
The multi-site challenge
Solar on a housing development or a commercial rooftop portfolio is a multi-site programme: the same drawings repeated across many sites, to a consistent standard, at the pace of the build. Three things make it run well — a single documented standard and set of house-type layouts applied to every site; a shared register tracking the whole programme; and drawing capacity that scales with the pipeline rather than being sized for the peak and idle the rest of the time.
These are the disciplines that make any multi-site infrastructure rollout work, which is why firms with that background handle solar rollouts well.
Resourcing the drawing work
Solar developers and installers generally choose between an in-house drawing team, their installation contractor’s resource, or a specialist CAD partner. In-house gives control but carries fixed cost through quieter periods. Contractor drawings are convenient but often inconsistent across sites. A specialist gives consistent output to one standard across the whole programme with capacity that flexes to the pipeline — provided they are set up for multi-site work.
How Outsource CAD helps
Outsource CAD produces the full CAD and render package for solar PV — panel and string layouts, electrical schematics, mounting details, cable routing, civils, as-builts and renders — across rooftop residential, commercial and ground-mount, working from your design and site information, to your standards, across your whole programme. Multi-site infrastructure is our background.
Call +44 28 9009 8876 or email info@outsourcecad.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
What CAD drawings does a solar project need?
Panel and array layouts, string layouts, electrical schematics and single-line diagrams, mounting details, cable routing, civils drawings for ground-mount, as-builts, and renders. The exact package depends on whether it is rooftop residential, commercial, or ground-mount.
Do CAD firms design the PV system?
A drawing production service does not. The PV design, string sizing, inverter selection, structural loading and grid connection are carried out by the solar designer and electrical engineer. The CAD work turns that design into drawings.
Why does multi-site experience matter for solar?
Solar on a development or portfolio is many similar sites needing consistent drawings at pace. Firms experienced in multi-site infrastructure apply one standard across every site and scale to the pipeline. Firms treating each site as a one-off produce inconsistent output.
Can renders be used for solar planning applications?
Yes — particularly for ground-mount, where landscape visual impact is a planning consideration. Renders also support investor and stakeholder presentations.
Should we build an in-house drawing team or outsource?
It depends on volume and how steady it is. Many developers outsource the drawing production while keeping the PV and electrical design in-house or with their engineer, getting consistent output and flexible capacity without the fixed overhead.
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