ENGINEERING TOOLS FOR THE REAL WORLD—NOT JUST YOUR DESKTOP
Optimize your site before you lock in costs
The SolarSpace® Toolbox is a GIS-based, terrain-first, civil-structural site optimization & design platform for utility-scale solar— to minimize your grading & steel costs and maximize project LCOE. Powered by KiloNewton's proprietary algorithms.
Conventional Grading
SiTE™ Optimized Grading
Who uses SolarSpace®
Developers
To perform early-stage SiTE™ analysis, evaluation & optimization, avoid costly terrain-related mistakes, and accurately quantify grading & steel costs before RFPs.
EPCs
To estimate tracker- and site-specific grading & steel costs for RFPs and oversee EORs performing civil-structural design.
EORs
To support their civil-structural engineering teams to design and optimize grading & steel, rapidly incorporate changes, and create pile plot plans.
What SolarSpace® Delivers
What you can achieve
- Reduced Risk
- Lower LCOE
- Faster Turnaround
- Accelerated Timelines
Extract Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
Automatically downloads public DEM raster data from the USGS National Map or World Elevation services.
1/5
Solutions
Four workflows. One platform. Better results.
From early-stage parcel evaluation through final construction — SolarSpace® supports engineers for the full civil-structural design cycle within ArcGIS Pro and with seemless interoperability with CAD and other solar design software.
SiTE™ Analysis & Evaluation
Terrain-based site analysis & evaluation using GIS and CAD data to answer the question— How much grading & steel will this terrain really require?
- Select Toolbox
- Terrain Analysis
- PV Array Placement
- DC Capacity Estimates
SiTE™ Design & Optimization | Civil
Optimized graded surfaces that can be incorporated into full civil designs. Simultaneously model terrain losses, eliminate inter-row shading, optimize planes of array, minimze grading.
- Estimate Toolbox
- Tracker-Agnostic
- PV Array Grading
- Pad Grading
SiTE™ Design & Optimization | Structural
Optimize pile heights and grading to minimize civil-structural costs while accelerating your structural design with automated row assignment and pile spacing, type and ID tools.
- Estimate Toolbox
- Automated Row Classification
- Automated Pile Assignment
- Steel Estimates/Pile BOMs
SiTE™ Construction
Generate final grading surfaces, zonal cut/fill statistics, automatically revised grading plans when pile elevations are manually adjusted, and support construction crews with pile maps.
- Estimate Toolbox
- Cut-Fill Balancing
- Zonal Cut-Fill Statistics
- Pile Plot Plans
By the Numbers
Results that move the industry.
Powered by SolarSpace®, KiloNewton has delivered SiTE™ Optimization services on over 7GWdc of projects projects — reducing civil-structural costs and compressing timelines.
7GWdc+
Projects optimized with SiTE™ Services
1–4¢/Wdc
Potential savings on civil costs on terrain-challenged sites
200 MWdc
SolarSpace® proprietary grading tools optimized in ~ 10 minutes
2017
Founded by the former Chief Engineer of Array Technologies
Platform Features
Everything in one ArcGIS Pro Add-In
Select Toolbox
Directional Slope Analysis & Exclusions
Derives slope in cardinal directions (N/S/E/W) from elevation rasters to flag terrain issues before any layout work begins.
Estimate Toolbox
SiTE™-Optimized Grading Estimates
KiloNewton’s proprietary algorithms used in SolarSpace® minimize grading for single axis trackers and support civil engineers with optimized graded surfaces through construction, exported as LandXML for use in CAD.
Common Questions
What is SolarSpace® and who is it for?+
SolarSpace® is a GIS-based solar site design & optimization software built as an ArcGIS Pro Add-in. It is designed for solar Developers, EPCs, and EORs to help their engineering teams de-risk project design and execution and reduce civil-structural costs on utility-scale solar sites.
What do I need to use the SolarSpace® Toolbox?+
The SolarSpace® Toolbox is currently configured as an ArcGIS Pro Add-in that requires a subscription to Esri's ArcGIS Online Professional Plus v 3.X. Esri's ArcGIS Pro is the world's leading GIS platform. If you are not currently an ArcGIS Pro user, we can work with Esri to secure a free trial to support a SolarSpace® trial and can also provide Esri products as part of a bundled offering with Esri. We can also provide recommendations for hardware and software configuration.
How does SolarSpace® compare to CAD-only and web-based platforms?+
Existing commercially available CAD-only tools (2D or 3D) do not simultaneously optimize planes of array, analyze slopes, eliminate inter-row shading, and minimize grading. SolarSpace® solves this complex civil & structural problem natively in GIS. Unlike web-based platforms SolarSpace® does not lock you into its workflow — it is design to work with imported data (from topo, to constraints, to layouts) and enables you to easily export data to CAD.
How is SolarSpace® licensed and priced?+
SolarSpace® is offered as a single license with both toolboxes. Pricing is customized — please contact us or request a quote.
What new features will SolarSpace® be adding?+
Our development team is actively working on a beta release of new hydrology tools and CAD grading tools in early Q3 2026; and a 2.0 release in Q4 of hydrology tools that include stormwater pond estimate and design, improved array PAD and basic road grading tools, imporved structural estimation tools and workflows, further automation and speed improvement as well as a full release of CAD grading tools.