Leaf Wins $50,000 DOE Solar Prize Grant

Leaf has been awarded a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's American-Made Solar Prize Ready! Round—funding that accelerates our mission to eliminate the repetitive CAD work that bogs down solar engineering teams.

Why Solar Engineers Need Better Tools

If you've spent hours manually stringing modules in AutoCAD, sizing conductors for SolarEdge optimizers, or copy-pasting equipment tags across permit sets, you know the problem. The solar industry has scaled rapidly, but the drafting workflows haven't kept up. Engineers and CAD technicians still rely on:

• Manual string layouts for rooftop and ground mount arrays
• Repetitive wire sizing calculations for every homerun and trunk cable
• Hand-drawn single-line diagrams that take hours to update
• Copy-paste workflows for equipment schedules and bill of materials

Some teams use LISP routines or custom AutoLISP commands to speed things up, but these scripts are fragile, hard to maintain, and don't scale across project types.

What We're Building with This Grant

The American-Made Solar Prize funding helps us develop automation that understands solar design—not just generic CAD operations. Our tools are built specifically for:

Automated Stringing for Rooftop Solar

Rooftop arrays with SolarEdge, Enphase, or string inverters require careful string sizing to meet voltage windows and NEC requirements. Leaf automates the stringing process, automatically grouping modules and routing DC conductors while respecting setbacks, obstructions, and electrical constraints.

Ground Mount Array Documentation

Large-scale ground mount projects mean thousands of modules, hundreds of strings, and massive wire schedules. Our automation generates complete electrical documentation—string tables, wire tags, homerun schedules—directly from your array layout.

Wire Sizing and Voltage Drop Calculations

No more spreadsheet lookups for conductor sizing. Leaf calculates voltage drop, ampacity, and conduit fill automatically, sized to NEC 2020/2023 requirements and your AHJ's specific derating factors.

Single-Line Diagram Generation

Instead of manually drawing every disconnect, combiner, and inverter connection, Leaf generates accurate single-line diagrams from your design data—complete with proper symbology and annotation.

Moving Beyond Manual LISP Scripts

Many solar engineering firms have cobbled together AutoLISP routines over the years—scripts for batch renaming blocks, auto-numbering equipment, or placing standard details. These work, but they're:

• Brittle: One CAD standards change breaks everything
• Siloed: Only the person who wrote them understands them
• Limited: They automate tasks, not workflows

Leaf takes a different approach. Instead of scripting individual operations, we automate entire engineering workflows—from array layout through permit package generation.

About the American-Made Solar Prize

The American-Made Solar Prize is a multimillion-dollar competition run by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). It's designed to accelerate solar innovation by connecting entrepreneurs with funding, mentorship, and national lab resources.

Being selected for the Ready! Round validates that the solar industry needs better design automation—and that Leaf is positioned to deliver it.

What's Next

This grant helps us expand our AutoCAD plugin capabilities, with a focus on:

• SolarEdge and Enphase optimizer stringing with automatic string sizing
• Batch documentation tools for high-volume residential installers
• Integration with PVsyst and Helioscope design data
• NEC code checking built into the drafting workflow

If you're a solar engineer tired of repetitive stringing work, or a CAD technician looking for better automation than custom LISP scripts, we'd love to hear from you.

Thank you to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Solar Energy Technologies Office for their support in making solar design faster and more accessible.