Solar Pathfinder Assistant 4

Any scientific analysis requires accurate input and careful calculations. The Solar Pathfinder and Assistant provide mathematical precision for accurate shading assessment (solar site analysis) by eliminating gross errors in structure orientation, solar system sizing, and PV/collector placement. The Solar Pathfinder Assistant software dovetails local weather data (using NREL/WMO) and site-specific shade analysis in a customizable report. Originally furnished for the ecological and photovoltaic applications, the Assistant software now services the growing thermal technologies. Regardless of the industry being serviced, the software identifies the shading patterns and total potential energy produced at any given site. The Solar Pathfinder Assistant software is a fast, accurate, and proven way to create a data-rich report for solar rebate programs.

Version 3 users: upgrade for free to version 4. This upgrade includes version 4 and PV plug-in.

	Solar Pathfinder Assistant Products				Plug-ins Only (Base Required)
	Base Only (Ecological)	Base + PV plug-in	Base + Thermal plug-in	Base + PV & Thermal plug-ins	PV Plug-in	Thermal Plug-in
	$149.00	$149.00	$149.00	$189.00	$49.00	$49.00
	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More
	Solar Pathfinder Assistant Products				Plug-ins Only
	Base Only (Ecological)	Base + PV plug-in	Base + Thermal plug-in	Base + PV & Thermal plug-ins	PV Plug-in	Thermal Plug-in
Primary Industries	Forestry, Fisheries, Golf Course Management	PV Installation	Solar Thermal, Domestic Hot Water	Both PV Installation & Solar Thermal	PV Installation	Solar Thermal Installation
English/Metric	•	•	•	•
Computes Monthly Solar Access	•	•	•	•
Identify Solar Obstructions Potential Energy	•	•	•	•
Stand-alone software (no internet connection required after initial registration)	•	•	•	•
Actual/Ideal solar radiation (kW/m2/day)	•	•	•	•
Export in CSV, XML, PDF	•	•	•	•
Accepted for US rebate reporting	•	•	•	•
Customize Panels and Inverters		•		•	•
Uses PVWatts algorithms for calculations		•		•	•
Ouput: Actual/Ideal AC energy (kWhr); Radiation %; cost savings; etc.		•		•	•
Uses F-Chart algorithms for calculations			•	•		•
Output: Solar Hot water solar fraction; Solar Hot water produced (MMBTU); etc.			•	•		•
	$149.00	$149.00	$149.00	$189.00	$49.00	$49.00
	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More

Upgrade

V.3 users: upgrade for free to V.4.

Please note: There is no "upgrade" from v1 or v2 to v4.

Customer Feedback

This Feedback Forum is for you to share comments or suggestions to help Solar Pathfinder continuously improve the Solar Pathfinder Assistant 4 to meet the needs of our customers and the industry.

• single-axis tracking model
  by Peter Carrie

  Hi Folks: Great tool! I take it the single-axis tracking option is for pole-mounted azimuth trackers. it would be very useful for large systems, if there was a tracking option to handle roll-type ("teeter-totter")trackers aligned on a north-south axis. Thanks!

• Solar Pathfinder Assistant Software Upgrade
  by Jim Krieg ~ SOLAR NETWORK INC

  Thank you for adding the KWH column, company logo option, jpeg export, ect.

  Great job on the software!

  I LOVE IT!!!

• MAC version
  by Jolyon H. Sawrey

  We love the pathfinder, the new software appears beneficial but we need a mac version.

• Re: MAC version
  by D Sterling

  You could always try VirtualPC (for PowerPC) or Parallels Desktop (for Intel) on a Mac in the meantime.

• Re: MAC version
  by Solar Pathfinder

  We have several MAC users successfully using the Assistant on a Parallel platform on their MACs. Since most new MACs are coming out with some type of Parallel platform to work PC software, we are not working on a MAC version at this time.

• Great investment!
  by Larry Owens

  Great investment! Compared to manually entering each datapoint, the Pathfinder Assistant does it all for you.

  The reports are very helpful when meeting with clients.

  Now, if you can come up with numbers for Solar DHW applications it would make an already good product even better!

• Re: Great investment!
  by Solar Pathfinder

  Thanks for the comment, Tim. V4 now has Solar thermal! If you like the Assistant for PV, you'll love the Assistant with Thermal!!

• Fantastic software! Wonderful product!
  by Tim Gooding

  I expect you hear this all the time, but the pathfinder with the new software is fantastic! I had used the "analog" version a few years ago. Effective, but really pretty tedious. Thank you for a really wonderful product.
  

• Great sales tool!
  by Glen Morris, Australia

  Bye-the-way, having been a user of the plain SPF without the software for many years, I must say that the software takes the tool to a much higher level. It's a great sales tool too - looks very impressive when showing a customer their solar window.

  Thanks for the good work. I eagerly await each new version.

• Getting better and better!
  by Bob Greene

  Thanks for your help - got the update and it is working fine.

  I like the new features. The Solar Pathfinder Assistant just keeps getting better and better.

• Excellent software and cusomer service!
  by Coy Solar

  Thank you for not only a great product ... but excellent software updates and customer service!!!!!!!!

  Coy

• Great service; great software
  by Curt Maxey

  All,

  Thanks for your help in achieving an "on time" delivery. I think I opened the link at 1:00 p.m yesterday and I was sitting in the communication director's office with printed reports in hand by 3:00 p.m. He took my proposal to the ORNL Laboratory Director before COB yesterday and I should have a response today.

  I appreciate your assistance.

  Best regards,
  Curt

• GREAT Customer Service!
  by Solar Boy Dave

  This company has some outstanding customer service. I would recommend solar path finder software to everyone in the in the solar site assessment business. This product makes the site assessor job so much easier, and very professional looking. Thank-you for making site assessing easier, solar pathfinder is so very important to a successful site assessment.
  Thanx Solar boy Dave

• Great improvements!
  by Geoffrey Rich

  Thanks for informing me about the update to Solar Pathfinder Assistant.

  I downloaded the latest update and tried it out. The altitude/azimuth data is easily extracted by doing a copy/paste of the report data into Excel, and then exporting the altitude/azimuth data from Excel as a .CSV file. This works great for my purposes. Export can also be done with text editor like Notepad.

  You may want to mention in your advertising materials that the exported altitude/azimuth data can be imported into popular PV simulation tools like PV*Sol and PVSyst. (There are probably others too, but those two tools are the ones I use). The results of the simulations are improved by taking the shading sources into account.

  Thanks for considering my request and improving the Solar Pathfinder Assistant program!
  

• Technical support "Made in the USA" --MAC User
  by Rebecca

  Thanks for sending this! Now that I understand the reason for the error, I can work around it, and in an even easier way than is suggested in the link you sent.

  While what you recommended might work, I actually turned on the desktop sharing function specifically for Pathfinder, because I needed to be able to access the images which are on the Mac side (also used for the site report and FIle Maker Pro data base entries for each customer).
  Instead of turning off this desktop sharing, here's what I did instead:
  When saving a test SPA file, I made sure to put it in a folder that is on the Windows side, part of 'My Computer.' I even went back and took a few of the other spr files I was unable to re-open, and dragged them into my folder on the Windows side, and was now able to open then just fine with SPA. So it really has nothing to do with where the file is kept or saved, but only with needing it to be on the Windows side before re-opening. While it is a minor hassle to do this, it is certainly a reasonable work-around. I'll keep storing the files in the customer folders as I always do, and if/when I need to re-open the spr file to do additional work, I will just move it to the Windows side in order to open it.

  Thanks so much for pursuing this! I very much appreciate such personal technical support, and hope this solution might come in handy down the road as other users figure out that this is a problem. We look forward to the Mac version one day. :-) Technical support 'Made in the U.S.A.' has DEFINITE advantages! Thanks again.
  Keep Shining!