The mounting system manufacturer Schletter Group has fundamentally revised its free planning tool ‘Schletter Creator’.The browser-based tool is already being trialled by a number of major customers and will be launched across the European market from March 2025, Schletter announced.Over the course of the year, it will be expanded to the markets in North America, the Middle East and Africa as well as South East Asia.
According to Schletter, the application can be used to plan PV systems on any roof shape and covering. The roof systems are designed directly in Google Maps by marking the roof area. After entering the roof pitch and building height, the system calculates the exact size of the roof area to be covered and suggests the optimum layout depending on the desired orientation. According to Schletter, all commercially available modules are integrated into the tool. By entering the postcode or the name of the town, the regionally applicable standard loads for wind and snow are automatically adopted by the system. Schletter emphasises the fact that the actual building height is taken into account as a distinguishing feature compared to competitor products. ‘In practice, planning errors often occur because the actual building height is simply forgotten and the correct loads are not calculated,’ explains Cedrik Zapfe, CTO of the Schletter Group.
Another new feature is that the tool takes into account the latest aerodynamic calculations on the so-called group effect of modules. There are aerodynamic interactions between the modules within a system. Depending on the arrangement, these can lead to certain modules within a larger group being exposed to lower wind loads than, for example, in individual rows or in the edge area. This allows planning with less ballast while maintaining the same static safety. The programme can be connected to all common inverter programmes via an API interface.
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