The world’s leading design and proposal software, meets the UK’s leading renewables distributor.  The Segen x OpenSolar integration means UK installers can now enjoy intelligent equipment matching, real-time price and stock availability, and equipment ordering directly from their OpenSolar projects.

 

Getting Started

Only available for accounts that are in the UK (based on the country set up in Company>Business info).

In order to set up your Segen account you should go to Control>Other>Integrations and API keys and then scroll to the bottom and turn on the Toggle labelled “Enable Segen”.

After you press save you will get a pop up window which prompts you to enter your B2C credentials. 

Once you fill this in and click login, your account will be connected and the pop up should go away (takes 15 seconds or so). 

Once the pop up goes away, the accounts are connected. 

If you would like to disconnect your account you can always do so by going to the top right and clicking on the settings/gear icon>settings>Disconnect Segen. 

Searching for Segen Components

From here you can create a project (in the UK) and go through the normal design process. In the design area you can search for Segen components using the normal component searching process, but you can also search for the components using the Segen component codes. You should also be able to see the Segen stock availability and the Segen price of the components when searching for them. 

 

Creating a Segen Quote

Once the design is sold or the customer has agreed which option they will be going with, you can go to the Info tab of the project and in the top right you should see an orange button which prompts you to create a Segen quote. 

Note if there are multiple systems on the design and there is no system which has been marked as sold then it would show a different create quote button for each of the system options. If one of the system options is marked as sold, then it would only show that one. 

 

When the create quote button is clicked it will open a dialog which will include the components from that system. 

If the components for that system are linked to Segen components then it will automatically load in the relevant Segen component, otherwise it will load as a general non-linked component at the bottom of the dialog. 

You can also look up any Segen components from the Segen database. You can either do this by looking up the whole Segen database by using the “+ Add Item” button, or you can specifically look up a particular type of component by using the add button from the specific area of the dialog (e.g. panels, inverters etc.). 

Once the components for a system are finalised, you can either create the quote (which will open you Segen quote in a new tab in the Segen tool) OR you can close the dialog and do the same for another project in order to create an order which contains the components from both systems which can then both be ordered in one go. You can continue to do this for multiple more projects. Note you will be able to see which projects the components are coming from at the top of the dialog. 

 

Note, if you refresh the page before you send the quote to Segen, the order will be cleared. 

 

When this is finalised, you will be able to click the green “Create Segen Quote” which will open the Segen quote in a new tab with all of the components that you have in that dialog. 

Racking Integrations

There are currently two racking integrations which allow you to automatically add the necessary racking components for your design. These are Renusol and Esdec. 

Renusol

Please note that the integration will not work if the browser blocks 3rd party cookies (which is how it is in the incognito version of the Chrome Browser).

 

The Renusol racking integration has been added to the Other Components tab in design and is visible only when the Segen integration has been enabled in the Control > Integrations and API keys section. 

When you click on the Renusol Configurator button in the Other Components tab, it will launch the Renusol Configurator tool as a popup and will send across a few key details about the design, including how many panel groups, location information, panel information and some basic guesses at the roof dimensions. However, you will need to complete some more information that is key to the racking calculations in the Renusol tool and also review the roof dimensions size as it may not give the correct result depending on which product and roof type is selected in this process.

Also we currently assume the panel thickness of 35mm and weight of 20kg for the panels which can be updated in the Renusol configurator if need be. 

You should also ensure that each panel group’s design is accurate to what is designed in OpenSolar, since OpenSolar does not send the panel group design to Renusol. 

 

An overview of the Renusol configurator workflow is as follows: 

1. Configuration
2. Design
• Validate design
3. Part list
4. Repeat for any other panel groups if necessary. 

 

After you have gone through the Renusol workflow for all of your panel groups, you can click the “Back to OpenSolar” button which will take you back to the app and show you a full list of the components that Renusol recommends.

If a panel group is not completed, then we will give a warning in the partlist screen after you come back to OpenSolar and you can then go through the Renusol flow again to update that panel group. 

 

Note that every time you click on the Renusol configurator after the first time it will return you to the same project in Renusol, so if you make any changes to the system design, you must click the Clear Renusol text beneath Renusol Configurator button in order to start a new Renusol project. 

Esdec

For Esdec, the functionality is available in a similar way to the Renusol integration, however the workflow is different. 

For Esdec, you are not redirected to their configurator, so instead we collect key information about the panel groups in a popup before we send the info to Esdec. 

After this info is collected for all panel groups, you can then click “Get BOM” which will attempt to get a list of required racking components along with recommended (but not mandatory) racking components as well. When you click save changes, it will add those components to the design. 

 

Here is a breakdown of the fields in the Esdec dialog:

• Terrain Category - this is the terrain category according to the Eurocode. 

• Wind Speed - This is the wind speed that the panels will encounter

• Orography - This is a factor which accounts for how mountainous the terrain is. Generally for flat terrain, you can assume 1. 

• Roof Type - This is the material of the roof. 

• Mounting Type - This is the mounting product which will be used. 

• Panels per Row - This is only necessary for Flatfix Fusion and defines how many panels are per row. Single is one panel per row and Dual is two panels per row. 

• Row Distance - This is only necessary for Flatfix Fusion and defines the distance from the start of one panel to the start of the next panel in the next row. 

• Panel Thickness - This is the thickness of the panel.

• Panel weight - This is the weight of the panel. 

• Rail Orientation - This defines which orientation the rails will go on the panel. 

• Roof height - This is the height of the roof in metres. 

• Roof width - this is the distance from left to right when facing in the direction of the panels

• Roof length - this is the distance from front to back when facing in the direction of the panels

• Roof pitch - This is the pitch of the roof in degrees. 

• Top left coordinates - This defines where the panel group starts on the roof. Starting from the top left corner and measuring in. 

Battery Compatibility

Based on the Segen tool, we have added some battery / battery charger compatibility checks to ensure that you are using the correct components. 

This functions by checking the codes of the batteries and the inverters/other components used on the system and will display a message if a battery or battery charger is used without a compatible counterpart. 

When you are searching for the compatible batteries, you can also filter the batteries by what is compatible with any of the chargers that are already added. 

Please note that this compatibility is restricted to the items that are available in Segen.