If you are choosing BESS design software for utility-scale storage in 2026, four dedicated tools cover the early design stages: FluxPilot, PVFARM RE STACK, RatedPower by Enverus, and Glint Solar. They overlap less than their marketing suggests. Each one grew out of a different job, and the honest way to pick is to match the tool to the stage of the workflow you own. This page compares them plainly, including where each competitor is strong. We make FluxPilot, and we would rather you pick the right tool than the loudest page.
| Capability | FluxPilot | PVFARM RE STACK | RatedPower (Enverus) | Glint Solar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deployment | Desktop (Windows, macOS), local project files | Cloud | Cloud | Cloud |
| Primary focus | Sizing, layout, and augmentation for standalone BESS | Automated BESS layout generation and comparison | Utility-scale solar, standalone BESS, and hybrid design | Prospecting, site selection, and preliminary BESS design |
| Sizing to a usable MWh target | Yes: works backward from usable energy through DoD, RTE, auxiliary load, temperature derate, and degradation to a container count | Configures equipment from manufacturer specs; focus is layout density rather than a usable-energy derate stack | Yes, within its energy and yield modeling | Preliminary design with engineering-approved settings |
| Site layout | Yes: DXF import and export, roads with turning radii, MV feeder routing, setbacks and exclusion zones | Yes: generates many layout options with roads, MV collection, and constraint handling | Yes: automated layout with a manual editor, DWG export | Preliminary layouts for feasibility |
| 20-year augmentation schedule | Yes: year-by-year container and inverter additions built into the sizing | Not featured in published materials | Degradation in yield modeling; a year-by-year augmentation plan is not the focus | Not featured in published materials |
| Weather modeling | Roughly 20 years of climate data per site, TMY P50 and hot-year P90 cases | Not featured in published materials | Yes, for yield simulation | GIS and resource data for screening |
| Solar PV design | No, BESS only | No, BESS focus (PVFARM's main product covers solar) | Yes, core strength | Yes, alongside BESS |
| Typical user | The engineer who owns and defends the container count | Teams exploring layout options before detailed engineering | Solar-plus-storage developers and EPCs standardizing designs | Development teams screening and ranking sites |
Competitor rows reflect each vendor's public product pages and launch materials as of August 2026. If we have something wrong, tell us and we will correct it.
FluxPilot is built around one workflow: turn a contracted usable-energy target into a buildable, defensible design. The sizing engine works backward from usable MWh through the full derate stack to container counts and inverter pairings for AC block and DC block architectures. The layout engine places those counts on your actual parcel from a DXF, generates access roads, routes MV feeders, and respects setbacks. The augmentation model holds usable energy flat across 20 years and reports what to add each year. Because all three live in one project file, changing a cell, a duration, or a setback updates every downstream number in the same iteration. It is a desktop application, so project data stays on your machines.
RE STACK, launched commercially in August 2026, attacks the layout exploration problem: given manufacturer equipment specs and site constraints, generate and compare many feasible layouts with roads, auxiliary equipment, and MV collection routing, then export toward detailed engineering. Its strength is the breadth of the option space it can sweep quickly. It comes from the team behind PVFARM, whose main product serves utility-scale solar layout and civil design.
RatedPower is the most established platform of the four and the broadest in electrical scope, covering utility-scale PV, standalone BESS, and hybrid plants through yield simulation, substation and interconnection design, and DWG export. Teams that run large solar portfolios often standardize on it for basic engineering. For standalone storage, its BESS capability sits inside a platform whose center of gravity is solar.
Glint Solar comes at the problem from the development side: GIS-driven prospecting, parcel viability and buildable-area analysis, and preliminary BESS design with noise modeling and visual impact assessment. It is strongest before the stage FluxPilot serves, when the question is which parcels deserve engineering attention at all.
Match the tool to the question you are paid to answer. If it is "which sites should we pursue," start with a prospecting platform like Glint Solar. If it is "what layout options exist for this parcel," RE STACK sweeps that space quickly. If it is "how do we standardize solar-plus-storage engineering across a portfolio," RatedPower covers the widest scope. If it is "what exact container count, layout, and augmentation plan do I commit to and defend for 20 years," that is the workflow FluxPilot was built for, end to end in one file. For the engineering reasoning behind that workflow, see how to size a utility-scale BESS.
The main dedicated tools in 2026 are FluxPilot (desktop, sizing plus site layout plus 20-year augmentation in one project file), PVFARM RE STACK (cloud, automated layout generation and comparison), RatedPower by Enverus (cloud, utility-scale solar, standalone BESS, and hybrid design), and Glint Solar (cloud, early-stage prospecting, site selection, and preliminary BESS design).
FluxPilot is the only one of the four that is a desktop application, and the only one that carries a usable-energy sizing engine, DXF site layout, and a 20-year augmentation schedule in one project file. RE STACK focuses on layout exploration, RatedPower covers the broadest solar-plus-storage electrical scope, and Glint Solar focuses on early-stage prospecting and screening.
FluxPilot builds a 20-year augmentation schedule into the sizing itself, reporting the containers and inverters to add each year so usable energy holds flat as cells fade. The published materials for RE STACK, RatedPower, and Glint Solar center on layout, yield, and feasibility rather than a year-by-year augmentation plan.
Yes. FluxPilot runs as a desktop application on Windows and macOS. Projects live in local files you can bundle and share (.bfp), which suits teams that want design data on their own machines rather than in a vendor's cloud.