Chile is not one solar market. It is two, and they barely resemble each other. One is a developer business built around PMGD, where the yield model is a financing input read by people who lend money. The other is rooftop self-consumption under Ley 21.118, which behaves like a normal installer market. A software stack assembled for one of these will fail on the other, and most buying mistakes here start with treating them as the same business.
Direct answer. Solar software in Chile splits into six layers: design and simulation, sales and proposal, compliance documentation, monitoring, CRM and operations, and procurement. The Chilean distinctive is that the market divides into PMGD distributed generation projects and Ley 21.118 self-consumption rooftops, with oversight from the SEC. Those two businesses need different stacks, weighted differently.
TL;DR
- Two markets, two stacks. PMGD is developer work where the model is a financing input. Ley 21.118 is installer work.
- Compliance oversight sits with the Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustibles (SEC), and the deliverable differs by market.
- Far-horizon terrain shading is a required input on a great many Chilean sites, including in the north.
- Atacama irradiance is overwhelmingly direct beam, so shadows cost close to their full geometric value.
- Desert soiling can exceed shading losses. State the two assumptions separately or a shortfall is undiagnosable.
What “Solar Software” Actually Means in Chile
The category covers six separate jobs. The Chilean weighting depends entirely on which of the two markets you are in.
Design and simulation. Layout, row pitch, terrain, losses, and yield. On PMGD work this is the layer the money reads.
Sales and proposal. Customer-facing savings documents. Central to Ley 21.118 rooftop work, close to irrelevant on PMGD.
Compliance documentation. Drawings, equipment evidence, and the declaration route under SEC oversight, plus the connection process with the distribution company.
Monitoring. Post-commissioning production data, usually from the inverter vendor’s portal, with SCADA on larger plants.
CRM and operations. Pipeline, survey scheduling, crew and subcontractor coordination.
Procurement. Module, inverter, and mounting sourcing. A logistics and relationship problem, not a subscription.
The Chilean Solar Software Stack, Layer by Layer
Figures are illustrative and converted at roughly 950 CLP to the dollar.
| Layer | Representative tools | Who uses it | Typical cost per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Design and simulation | PVsyst, PVcase, SurgePV, HelioScope | Design engineers | CLP 450,000 to CLP 7,500,000 per seat |
| Sales and proposal | SurgePV, OpenSolar | Sales team, rooftop mainly | CLP 0 to CLP 3,000,000 per seat |
| Compliance documentation | AutoCAD, SurgePV, outsourced drafting | Drafting team | CLP 900,000 upward or per drawing |
| Monitoring | Inverter portals, SCADA | O&M | Usually bundled with hardware |
| CRM and operations | Zoho, HubSpot, spreadsheets | Everyone | CLP 0 to CLP 1,800,000 per seat |
| Procurement | Distributor and supplier relationships | Purchasing | Not a software purchase |
Two of those layers are not really purchases. Monitoring arrives with the inverter or the plant SCADA package. Procurement runs on supplier terms and shipping. That leaves four real decisions, and on PMGD work the proposal layer drops out too.
The Split That Decides Your Stack: PMGD Versus Ley 21.118
This is the section that matters, and it is the reason imported software advice fails in Chile.
PMGD is a regulated project class for small distributed generation. The work is developer-led. Somebody options land, tests the connection point, builds a model, and raises money against it. In that world the yield figure is not a marketing number. It is an input to a financing decision, and it will be reviewed by a technical advisor who asks how it was produced. The design and simulation layer therefore carries most of the value, and the standard of evidence is higher than rooftop engineers expect.
Ley 21.118 self-consumption is a different business entirely. Here the buyer is a homeowner or a commercial site owner comparing quotes. Volume matters, speed matters, and presentation decides some jobs. The proposal layer earns its keep, and the design tool needs to be fast rather than exhaustive.
The failure is buying one stack for both. A PMGD developer running rooftop proposal software cannot defend a yield number to a lender. A rooftop installer who buys utility-grade simulation uses a fraction of it and slows down their sales cycle to do so.
The opinionated part. If you work in both markets, run two workflows on purpose and staff them separately. Trying to make one toolchain and one engineer serve both is how PMGD models end up with rooftop assumptions inside them.
Depth on the design layer sits in best solar design software in Chile, and the sales layer in solar proposal software in Chile.
Try the software behind this guide
Model the horizon before you sign the land, not after
SurgePV runs far-horizon terrain shading and array geometry in one model, with soiling and shading stated separately, then exports the single-line diagram and DWG your PMGD or Ley 21.118 pack needs.
Book a free SurgePV demo →No credit card. 20-minute walkthrough on one of your own projects.
The Compliance Layer Under SEC Oversight
Electrical oversight in Chile sits with the Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustibles. That is the constant across both markets. What differs is the deliverable.
On Ley 21.118 rooftop work, the pack is a drawing set, equipment evidence, and the declaration and connection process handled with the distribution company. It is a drafting and conformity capability, not a subscription. No platform files your paperwork. What resolves it is a drafter who knows the current format and an engineer who knows which evidence will be asked for.
On PMGD work the documentation is heavier and the audience is different. Alongside the regulatory pack there is a technical case that has to survive an outside reviewer. The compliance layer and the design layer stop being separable, because the drawings and the yield model have to describe the same plant.
Buy this accordingly. A rooftop team should outsource drafting per project. A PMGD developer should keep drawings and model in one place so the two never drift apart.
Terrain Is the Chilean Shading Problem
Chile is a narrow strip between the Andes and the Pacific with a coastal range in between. That geometry has a direct consequence for design: far-horizon terrain shading is a required input on a great many sites, including in the north.
A flat plot says nothing about what sits on the horizon 20 kilometres east. Mountains that far away still remove real production, and they remove it at the start of the day, every day, for the life of the plant. No array layout fixes it. You cannot re-pitch your way out of a mountain range.
That is what makes it a pre-signature question rather than a design question. Knowing the horizon profile before the land is committed is the difference between a good project and a dispute with an investor who was shown a number the site could never produce.
At utility scale the second shading problem is different again. There, tracker backtracking and terrain-aware row pitch dominate, not obstruction. A uniform pitch across undulating ground fails twice. Where the ground falls away, the pitch is wider than needed and you buy land and cable for nothing. Where it rises, the same pitch is too tight and rows shade each other while the backtracking algorithm believes they do not.
Detail on that sits in solar shading analysis software in Chile.
Direct Beam, Soiling, and the Southern Sun Path
Three physical facts change how you set up a Chilean model.
First, Atacama irradiance is overwhelmingly direct beam. There is no diffuse cushion. A shadow costs close to its full geometric value, so flat percentage loss factors imported from cloudier climates produce optimistic yields.
Second, desert soiling is severe enough to exceed most shading losses on the same plant. State soiling and shading as separate assumptions with separate bases. Combine them into one figure and a later shortfall becomes undiagnosable, because nobody can tell whether the cleaning interval slipped or the geometry was wrong. Those have different owners and different remedies.
Third, this is the southern hemisphere. Arrays face north. It sounds obvious, and it still catches imported templates and default tool settings.
One more constraint sits outside software entirely. Seismic loading is a real structural requirement in Chile, and no design tool speaks to it. That is a structural engineering deliverable.
What Stack You Need at Your Size
Small rooftop installer. Two layers. A combined design and proposal tool plus spreadsheets. Outsource the drawing set per project.
Commercial self-consumption under Ley 21.118. Three layers. Design and proposal, a light CRM, and a standing drafting relationship.
PMGD developer. Three layers weighted heavily to design, with far-horizon terrain modelling treated as mandatory and monitoring arriving with the plant. Proposal software is not on the list.
EPC working across both markets. Two parallel workflows, separate owners, and a structural partner for foundations and seismic work.
Pricing the Whole Stack in Pesos
Figures are illustrative and converted at roughly 950 CLP to the dollar.
| Company stage | Layers | Realistic annual software spend |
|---|---|---|
| Small rooftop installer | 2 | CLP 500,000 to CLP 3,000,000 |
| Commercial self-consumption | 3 | CLP 3,000,000 to CLP 12,000,000 |
| PMGD developer | 3 weighted to design | CLP 12,000,000 to CLP 50,000,000 |
| Cross-market EPC | All, plus integration | CLP 50,000,000 upward |
Peso costs move with the exchange rate on dollar-priced seats, so treat multi-year commitments with more caution than a Saudi or a US buyer would.
Per-platform detail is in our solar design software pricing breakdown.
What Most Chilean Developers Get Wrong
They assume the horizon is flat because the ground is.
Here is the mechanism, and it is specific. A developer walks a site in the north. The plot is flat, open, and free of obstructions. The design tool is set up for obstruction shading, finds nothing to obstruct, and returns a near-zero shading loss. Everything about that output looks correct, because it is internally consistent. What was never entered is the terrain horizon. A mountain range 20 kilometres east is not an obstruction in the tool’s sense, so it does not exist in the model.
The plant then loses the first hours of every single day. Those are the coolest hours, when module temperature is lowest and efficiency is highest. So the loss is worth more per kilowatt-hour than an equivalent midday loss would be, and it repeats 365 times a year for the asset life.
It surfaces late. Either a technical advisor asks for the horizon profile used, or it appears in first-year production data with financing terms already signed. Neither conversation is pleasant, and no array layout change fixes it.
The correction is cheap. Pull a real horizon profile for the coordinates, load it into the model before land is committed, and write the soiling assumption down beside the shading assumption. Doing that costs an afternoon. Not doing it costs a project.
The second mistake is the mirror image. A rooftop installer buys PMGD-grade tooling because it looks serious, then uses a tenth of it on jobs that needed a clean drawing set and a fast quote.
When Software Is Not the Answer
If your bottleneck is the engineering pack rather than the model, another licence will not move it. Seismic and foundation work in particular is not a modelling problem.
Our solar ground mount design and solar civil and structural engineering teams cover layout, foundations, and the construction pack, with STAAD Pro report calculations where structural sign-off is required. See the sample design pack or talk to our team.
Conclusion
- Pick your market before you pick your stack. PMGD and Ley 21.118 need different tools and different people.
- Model the far horizon before signing land. Terrain losses are permanent and no layout change recovers them.
- Separate soiling from shading in writing. Combined loss figures make later shortfalls impossible to attribute.
In this country series: best solar design software in Chile, best solar proposal software in Chile, shading analysis software in Chile, Pvcase review. Tool deep dives: Pvsyst review, Helioscope review.
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Disclosure and accuracy note
Commercial relationship. Heaven Designs and SurgePV are part of the same group. Treat our recommendation of SurgePV as a vendor making its own case, not an independent verdict. We have tried to describe every other product fairly, and to say plainly where a competitor is the better choice.
Pricing. All prices are indicative, compiled from public sources when this page was written. They vary by tier, region, contract term and exchange rate, and change without notice. Several vendors quote rather than publish, and some price in currencies other than the US dollar, so a converted figure moves with the exchange rate. Confirm current pricing with the vendor before you decide anything.
Trademarks and corrections. All product names and trademarks belong to their respective owners, and are used here for identification and comparison only. Their use does not imply affiliation with or endorsement by those companies. If anything here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
FAQ
What is solar software? An umbrella term for six categories: design and simulation, sales and proposal, compliance documentation, monitoring, CRM and operations, and procurement. In Chile monitoring and procurement are rarely software purchases, and on PMGD work neither is proposal.
What solar software do Chilean developers actually use? Commonly PVsyst for yield studies, a terrain-aware layout tool such as PVcase on ground-mount, AutoCAD or an integrated platform such as SurgePV for drawings, and the inverter vendor’s monitoring portal.
How much does solar software cost in Chile? Roughly CLP 500,000 a year for a small rooftop installer running two layers, and CLP 12,000,000 to CLP 50,000,000 for a PMGD developer. Rates here are illustrative at about 950 CLP to the dollar.
How is PMGD different from Ley 21.118 for software choice? PMGD is developer work where the yield model feeds a financing decision, so simulation quality dominates. Ley 21.118 is self-consumption rooftop work, where proposal speed and presentation matter more.
Why does far-horizon terrain shading matter so much in Chile? Because the country is a narrow strip between mountain ranges. Distant terrain removes the first hours of production daily, and unlike an obstruction, no array layout change recovers it.
Who regulates electrical installations for solar in Chile? The Superintendencia de Electricidad y Combustibles, known as the SEC, with connection handled through the distribution company. Seismic structural requirements sit outside any design tool.
Related: the design layer in depth is in best solar design software in Chile, the sales layer in best solar proposal software in Chile, and shading specifically in solar shading analysis software in Chile.
