Testimonies
EQUANS Ineo Nord Littoral
Installer
DEVELOPING A PHOTOVOLTAIC BUSINESS WITH ARCHELIOS
Equans Ineo – Customer experience
Ineo Nord Littoral, based in Douai (France), is a branch of Equans France, a leader in the energy and services sector.
To meet growing demand for photovoltaics, particularly from its industrial customers, this agency has developed a special unit dedicated to photovoltaic projects.
Quentin Wattiez is the agency’s Photovoltaic Development Manager. He is in charge of business in the North region. As part of the development of PV projects, Quentin Wattiez and his team have opted for the archelios Suite software solution, which consists of archelios PRO and archelios CALC.
MEETING A GROWING PV DEMAND WITH A HIGH-PERFORMANCE SOFTWARE SOLUTION
Ineo Nord Littoral was being asked to take on new projects, and a high-performance software soon became necessary to carry out the studies. The aim was to provide accurate analyses, but also to reduce lead times to meet the increase of requests in PV activity
Providing comprehensive studies is essential to support and convince customers to move into photovoltaics. With archelios PRO, it is possible to provide all the detailed reports so that customers can have all the details of their project.
WHY CHOOSE ARCHELIOS PHOTOVOLTAIC SOLUTION?
When the PV business unit was created and in order to meet the demands, it was essential to be trained in photovoltaics. Training was then taken with an organisation that recommended several software packages including archelios PRO and archelios CALC.
« We quickly saw that this software could help us with the dimensioning of our installations but also with the calculation notes on the AC and DC parts of the installation. »
A SOLUTION FOR ALL TYPES OF PROJECTS
The aim of the new photovoltaic business unit is to meet the needs of all types of projects in the northern sector. There are many different types of demand: shade, ground, roof, self-consumption, total resale, collective resale, etc.
« Our first project carried out with archelios was the complete study for a 114 kWp installation. This project enabled us to get to grips with the software, and now we can easily carry out installations with higher outputs of several MWp.»
WHAT ARE THE STRENGTHS OF THE SOFTWARE SUITE?
- Ergonomics, which had been highlighted during the comparative study of PV solutions, is one of the software’s strong points. Several employees work daily with archelios PRO to carry out studies. The intuitive interface has enabled them to get to grips with it fairly quickly. «We compared several software packages and archelios Suite quickly emerged as the solution that best met our expectations. »
- archelios PRO has a database of manufacturers’ equipment that can also be enhanced and customised. The wide choice of references allows greater flexibility in the design of installations. The major players in the photovoltaic industry are listed in the database, « The database is very complete, so I can find all the manufacturers I need » Quentin Wattiez says.
- Exporting an archelios PRO project to archelios CALC, module/inverter configurations, manufacturer references and cable lengths can be retrieved. These are automatically imported and the user just has to configure the protections and size them. « With archelios CALC, we can generate our calculation notes and size the AC/DC part of the projects. »
ARCHELIOS PRO AND SKETCHUP: A WINNING COMBINATION
All the agency’s projects are systematically designed with archelios PRO and 3D SketchUp software. For SketchUp users, design is intuitive and fast. Detailed modelling of nearby buildings and masks is possible. It is also possible to position the inverters and automatically route the cables.
On a new building project, modifications and a new plan impacted the layout of the modules. With SketchUp, it was possible to make the change quickly and then archelios PRO did the rest. Quentin Wattiez explains. « archelios PRO comes into its own when using SketchUp. I can move modules around easily, interact on my project. It’s a winning combination. » Quentin Wattiez explains.
HIGHLIGHTS
- The software suite’s ergonomic interface
- The manufacturer database
- archelios plugin for SketchUp
- Export of the complete project to archelios CALC
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