PVcase

How Voltalia shifted from manual to automated workflows with PVcase

Voltalia, a French renewable energy company with a 5GW development portfolio across six countries, transitioned from slow, error-prone manual AutoCAD workflows to automated, precise solar design using PVcase, enabling them to efficiently tackle complex high-slope terrain challenges within one week and significantly streamline their engineering processes.

How Voltalia shifted from manual to automated workflows with PVcase

See how Voltalia replaced manual AutoCAD with automated design — and tackled high-slope terrain in a week with PVcase.

Customer: Voltalia
Location: France
Industry: IPP & EPC
Employees: 2000+

Key Results

  • 5GW total capacity in development portfolio
  • 6 countries with active global operations
  • 1 week to solve high-slope terrain challenges

The Customer

Learn more about Voltalia

Founded in France in 2005, Voltalia provides a comprehensive range of renewable energy services, from green electricity supply to the local production of solar, wind, hydro, and biomass energy. The company's mission is to improve the global environment while fostering local development across three continents.

“PVcase has transformed our process, enabling us to move from manual drawings to a more automated, precise system. This change has streamlined our workflow significantly.”

— Mário Gonçalves, CAD Design Team Coordinator at Voltalia

The Challenge

Slow, hard to scale, and risky manual processes

Voltalia moved to PVcase after hitting the limits of manual AutoCAD. Engineering inputs had to be drafted by hand into module layouts — slow, hard to scale, and error-prone.

Inefficient manual workflows

CAD designers relied on manual AutoCAD drawing based on engineering inputs, which was both time-consuming and highly prone to error.

Failed software alternatives

The team conducted tests with alternative software solutions, but these failed to deliver significant improvements or meaningful operational benefits.

Complex terrain

Projects featuring high-slope terrains created major complications for frame placement, highlighting the inadequacies of traditional design tools.

The Solution

From complex terrain to streamlined success

After testing other software with little improvement, Voltalia chose PVcase Ground Mount — replacing fragmented manual work with automated electrical design and construction data to streamline even high-slope projects.

Advanced electrical design

The team now leverages the Electrical Design feature and automated Bill of Quantities to extract highly accurate data in a fraction of the time.

Construction-ready piling data

PVcase provides precise coordinates for piles and exact pole lengths, which are essential for optimizing the transition from design to physical construction.

Precision and speed

The integration enables Voltalia to handle complex project requirements with a level of precision that manual AutoCAD simply could not match.

Ground Mount

Design construction-ready projects 90% faster. PVcase Ground Mount, built on AutoCAD, automates utility-scale solar design, adapting complex layouts to real-world terrain with unmatched accuracy.

Results

Fully automated development

PVcase has become a global design backbone for Voltalia — automating utility-scale layouts, sharpening piling and electrical accuracy, and enabling rapid issue resolution across complex terrain to keep projects on track in 20 countries.

Full automation

By leveraging automated features, Voltalia drastically reduced design timelines compared to their previous manual AutoCAD processes.

Optimized workflows

Precise piling data and electrical configurations have optimized both the internal design workflow and the external construction phase.

Agile problem solving

In a particularly challenging project, the PVcase support team updated software functionalities within weeks to adjust table placement on difficult terrain, overcoming obstacles that previously stalled progress.

“We are able to retrieve precise data in a fraction of time.”

— Mário Gonçalves, CAD Design Team Coordinator at Voltalia

Ready to experience the new way of working?

Turn complexity into clarity and confidently move your solar project forward with PVcase solutions.

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