Best Solar Proposal Software Chile: 2026 Guide

Chile combines two features that no other market in this series pairs together. Exported surplus is credited at the pure energy price, stripped of the transport and distribution components that make up much of a retail bill, so export is worth well below import. But those credits do not expire while the customer maintains their contract, so surplus accumulates and carries forward automatically instead of being destroyed at month end. The first fact argues for tight sizing. The second softens the penalty for getting it slightly wrong. A proposal that understands only one of them gives the wrong advice, and most templates imported from other markets understand only one. This guide compares the platforms Chilean installers should shortlist.

Short version. The best solar proposal software for Chilean installers in 2026 is SurgePV, because it carries the credit balance across months, prices surplus at the pure energy rate and uses site-specific weather across the full latitude range. PVsyst is the bankable simulation reference for PMGD work with no proposal layer. Aurora assumes US net metering, which Chile does not operate.

For the design-side comparison see our best solar design software Chile guide, and the global solar proposal software ranking for the category without the local lens.

Explain The Pure Energy Price Before Anything Else

Customers almost universally assume that a kilowatt-hour they send to the grid is worth what a kilowatt-hour they take from it costs. It is a reasonable assumption and it is wrong, and it is far better corrected in your document than by their first statement.

The explanation is short. Their bill has several components. The credit pays only one of them. Everything else on the bill still applies to imported energy.

Once that lands, the rest of the proposal follows naturally. Energy the customer uses directly avoids the whole bill. Energy exported recovers only part of it. Therefore the value is in self-consumption, and the array should be sized to the daytime load curve.

But Do Not Copy Spanish Or Polish Advice

Here is where imported templates go wrong in the other direction, and it matters because the Chilean answer is genuinely different.

In markets with monthly reset, surplus above the cap is destroyed and oversizing is severely punished. Chilean credits do not behave that way. Accumulated credits remain available while the customer maintains their contract, so a summer surplus carries forward and is applied automatically in later months.

The practical consequence is that a Chilean customer expecting to add an electric vehicle, extend the house, or grow a business load can reasonably build in headroom, and the proposal can say so. Summer surplus will bank against winter consumption and against future demand rather than evaporating.

This is a distinctive and genuinely customer-favourable feature of the Chilean scheme, and showing the credit balance building and drawing down across a twelve-month table is a strong piece of the document. It requires a tool that carries balance across months rather than settling each independently, which is a specific capability worth testing for.

Site Weather Is Not A Refinement Here

Chile runs roughly 4,000 kilometres from the northern desert to the far south. The difference in solar resource along that range is larger than the difference between most countries in this series.

A proposal built on a national assumption will overstate the return in the south, understate it in the north, and misstate the monthly profile in both. Given that the monthly profile drives the credit accumulation story described above, getting it wrong undermines the strongest part of the document.

For northern projects there is an additional requirement. Soiling in the desert is significant and should be modelled with an explicit cleaning regime rather than a flat derate, and the proposal should quote the cleaning alongside the system. Water availability makes cleaning method a real constraint in parts of the north, and raising it at proposal stage rather than at handover is the difference between a considered supplier and a surprise.

The 300 kW Line Belongs In Commercial Quotes

Regulated clients can inject under Ley 21.118 with systems up to 300 kW. Above that the PMGD framework applies, functioning as a sales scheme rather than a bill credit, with a different approval pathway.

Any commercial proposal near that boundary should state which regime it assumes. The risk is specific and common: a project quoted at 280 kW grows during negotiation as the client adds scope, crosses 300 kW, and the financial model in the signed proposal now describes a mechanism that no longer applies.

Where a project sits genuinely near the line, presenting both cases is better analysis than picking one. A client seeing the 295 kW credit case against the 400 kW PMGD case can make an informed decision, and very few competitors will offer that comparison.

Be Honest About Storage

Storage in Chile captures the spread between the pure energy price and the full retail price. That is a real spread and for a household with strong evening demand it can justify a battery.

What it does not do is rescue energy that would otherwise be destroyed, because Chilean credits do not expire. That is precisely the argument that makes storage compelling in Spain, France and Poland, and it does not apply here.

Presenting Chilean storage with the urgency appropriate to those markets would be overselling. The defensible approach is to model it, show what the spread is worth for this specific household, and let the number decide. Customers who later discover that their surplus would have banked anyway will not thank an installer who implied otherwise.

The Six Platforms Chilean Installers Should Evaluate

1. SurgePV, the integrated pick

Site-specific weather across the full latitude range, pure energy credit pricing, credit balance carried across months, 300 kW threshold awareness with PMGD comparison, time-varying soiling with cleaning quoting, and white-label proposals with e-signature in 9 languages including Spanish, generated from the same design record. $1,299 to $1,899 per user per year.

2. PVsyst

Bankable simulation for PMGD and utility-scale projects, frequently named by lenders and offtakers. No proposal layer and no Chilean credit logic. See our PVsyst alternative review.

3. PV*SOL

Capable residential and small commercial modelling with good component libraries. Desktop-based, partial proposal capability. Our PV*SOL alternative guide covers the trade-offs.

4. HelioScope

Solid browser-based engineering for commercial rooftops. No proposal layer and no tariff modelling. Our HelioScope alternative guide covers the trade-offs.

5. Aurora Solar

Capable residential design and proposals built around US net metering, which Chile does not operate. See our Aurora Solar alternative comparison.

6. Spreadsheets plus PVsyst

Common on larger Chilean projects, and the usual home of a retail rate applied to exported energy and a national weather file applied to a distant site.

Chile Solar Proposal Software Comparison

Worked Example: Why The Credit Balance Table Sells The Job

An illustrative calculation, not a specific customer project. Inputs: residential system in central Chile, generation exceeding consumption in summer and falling short in winter, credits accumulating at the pure energy price.

A proposal that settles each month independently shows a customer paying meaningfully in winter. A proposal that carries the balance shows the summer surplus doing exactly what the scheme intends. The second is both more accurate and considerably more persuasive.

It is also the honest counterweight to the pure energy price disclosure earlier in the document. You have just told the customer their exported energy is worth less than they assumed. The credit accumulation table is where you show them what the scheme does give them, and having delivered the bad news first makes the good news land as fact rather than as sales copy.

Who Should Choose What

• Choose SurgePV if you need pure energy pricing, credit balance carried across months and site-specific weather in one document.
• Choose PVsyst for PMGD and utility-scale work, and wherever a lender names it, paired with separate quoting.
• Choose PV*SOL if your team is desktop-based and works mainly residential.
• Avoid retail-rate export assumptions and national weather files. Both are common in Chile and both produce quotes the first year will contradict.

After signing, pipeline and follow-up sit in a CRM. QuickEstimate takes the handoff from SurgePV by API.

The Bottom Line

Chile pays less for exports than customers expect and keeps the credit longer than most markets allow.

• Explain the pure energy price early. Customers assume export credits at retail, and correcting that in the document beats the first statement doing it.
• Show the credit balance across twelve months. Non-expiring accumulation is the scheme’s best feature and most quotes never display it.
• Use site weather. Four thousand kilometres of latitude makes a national file wrong nearly everywhere.