The Component Catalogue

Where it lives and how it is laid out

Open Catalogue from the foot of the left navigation rail (its glyph is a spec sheet, just above the account avatar), or go straight to /catalogue. It is one of the few rail entries that are not greyed out before you open a project: the parts library is not the project's to own, so you can curate it at any time. Bookmark the route, or paste it to a colleague, and it opens on the module category.

The page is a single card with these bands, top to bottom:

1. a category tab bar of ten buttons, each with its own icon;

2. a search row — the Search box plus the Favourites, My parts and Show replaced checkboxes;

3. a chip row showing how your search was parsed (only while the box has text in it);

4. an action row — Import a file…, Replace an existing file with the same name, Add part…, a Delete (n) button when rows are selected, and the accepted-extensions hint. If you may not change the catalogue, this row carries a short note saying so instead;

5. a result-count line;

6. the data table, with a column set tailored to the open category.

The table scrolls inside the card rather than lengthening the page, so the column headers and the search row stay reachable however long the listing is. Switching category refetches that category's listing but keeps its own sort order and its own row selection, so coming back finds the category as you left it.

The category tabs

Ten categories run across the top, in this order:

The two battery tabs are two views of one listing: the engine answers both from the same battery library and each tab keeps only its own flavour, so switching between Physical batteries and Virtual batteries is instant and does not refetch.

Browsing and filtering

Search

The Search box (placeholder Search every column — try power_w:>500) filters the open category, and results narrow as you type — the app waits for a short pause before asking the engine, so a long query is not re-run on every keystroke. Matching happens on the engine over the whole category, not over the rows currently on screen, so a search reaches parts the page has not loaded yet.

A bare word matches any column. To narrow to one column, type its key, a colon and a value:

• trina — any column containing “trina”;

• technology:topcon — only the technology column;

• power_w:450 — a number on a numeric column means exactly that value;

• power_w:>500 — numeric comparison; >, >=, < and <= all work;

• power_w:500..600 — a numeric range;

• name:"Vertex S+" — quote a value that contains spaces.

Terms combine with AND, so trina power_w:>500 bifaciality:>0 is all three conditions at once.

Two affordances make the grammar visible:

• Column autocomplete. While you are typing a bare word, a short list of matching column keys drops below the box (up to eight), each with its friendly name. Click one and it is inserted as key:, caret parked after the colon, ready for the value. The list matches on the key and on the friendly name, which is how you find a column like mu_voc_mv_per_c without knowing it by heart. Esc dismisses the list.

• Term chips. Under the box, every term you typed renders as a chip — Power (W) > 500, any column ~ trina — so you can see what the box actually parsed to.

The three filter checkboxes

• Favourites (a heart precedes the label) — hide everything except the parts you have hearted in the current category.

• My parts (a gear precedes the label) — hide the components shipped with the application and keep only your own: what you imported, what you typed by hand, and the derived entries (marked with a gear) created when a specification was edited.

• Show replaced — also list parts that a later revision replaced. Off by default. A replaced part stays usable in every project that already references it; only the browse list hides it.

The three combine freely with each other and with Search.

Result count

The count line under the action row reflects what the filters leave visible. With nothing filtering it reads 1234 items, or 200 of 1234 items when the page holds only the first slice of a large category. With a filter active it reads 42 / 1234 item(s) match followed by every narrowing you have applied, joined with + — your quoted search text, the word favourites, the words my parts.

Sorting and columns

Click a column header to sort (every column but the gear and Options ones); click again to reverse. A small up or down triangle beside the header name marks the active key and its direction. Sort order is remembered per category.

The engine sorts over the whole category, not just the rows already fetched, so “highest power first” on a 20 000-row module library really does put the category's top module at the top. Hovering a header says so: Sorted over the whole category — the 200 rows shown are the first of 1234 matches. Against an older engine that cannot report a total, the sort covers only the rows loaded so far and a warning line under the count says exactly that rather than letting you believe otherwise.

The heart column leads the table; sorting on it groups your favourites together. Then come Manufacturer and Name, a narrow gear column that marks a derived part, the category's spec columns, and finally an Options column holding the per-row actions. Columns differ by category — see Table columns by category in the field reference. A column the engine has no friendly name for shows its raw key (module width and height are the two you will meet); that key is exactly what you type in the search box.

Scrolling a long category

A listing arrives 200 rows at a time. The Show more (n more rows) button under the count line appends the next 200 to the bottom of the table and says how many are left; the app may also fetch a slice by itself as the page opens, so the count can start at 400 rather than 200. Changing the category, the search, the sort or Show replaced starts again from the top. With Favourites ticked there is nothing to page: every part you have hearted in the category arrives at once.

Selecting rows

Click a row to select it. Shift-click extends a range from the last anchor; Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on a Mac) toggles individual rows. Multi-select matters for batch deletion. The selection is kept per category, so switching tabs and back does not lose it.

Module, inverter and battery rows can be dragged out of the table onto the Batch entry of the rail: hovering it with a part in hand opens the Batch view, and dropping the row there adds the part to its Parts page, ticked (Batch Simulation & Scenario Sweeps). That is how you build a part sweep from parts you are looking at. The Batch entry only takes the drag while a project is open. Dragging a row that is part of the current selection carries the whole selection; dragging an unselected row carries that row alone. Rows in the other five categories are not draggable.

Marking favourites (the curator's core job)

The heart column (leftmost) is how you promote a part so the rest of the application will offer it: click a part's heart to mark it, and again to unmark it.

Concretely, your hearts feed:

• the module dropdown on each Map zone card — and the module a freshly drawn zone is born with, which is the first favourite in the list — and its Mounting structure dropdown (The Map & Site Design Tab);

• the Diagram right-click “add an inverter / add a combiner box” entries, the Pick from favourites dropdown of each inverter and combiner-box row, and its Favourite cable picker (Electrical Design & the One-Line Diagram);

• the battery pickers for physical and virtual storage (Storage, EV & Specialized Systems);

• the Catalogue tariff dropdown of the project's consumption-rates card, under its From the catalogue rate source, which copies a hearted tariff's rates into the project — and, for a grid-only tariff such as a TURPE network charge, the From the catalogue row of its grid-pricing card (The Project Tab);

• the Batch tab's Parts page, whose ♥ Favourites only filter narrows its list to the parts you hearted, ready to tick for a head-to-head comparison (Batch Simulation & Scenario Sweeps). The tab's Auto-size page's Sweep modules and Sweep batteries axes also compete your favourite modules and batteries against the project's current parts — the modules, and the inverters picked for them, only once you have priced them (Component prices).

The project's generator and pump pickers are the exception: they list the catalogue's generators and pumps whether or not you hearted them. Hearts also arrive from the other direction: applying a Batch scenario that swaps a component adds that component to your favourites (Batch Simulation & Scenario Sweeps).

Each of those dropdowns, and the generator and pump pickers, ends on the same last entry, Add from the catalogue…, as does the Batch Parts list. It is the way back here: it opens this view on the picker's own category and leaves the picker as it was, so a part you heart then joins the list you came from. The address it opens names the category, as in /catalogue?tab=batteries-physical; the values are panels, inverters, boxes, wires, racking, batteries-physical, batteries-virtual, generators, pumps and tariffs, and such a link opens the same tab when bookmarked or shared.

Favourites are stored per category and persist between sessions: they live in your settings, alongside your other preferences. Turn on settings sync in Preferences, Tariffs & Theming and they follow your account to another browser or another machine; leave it off and they stay in this browser. A heart on a part the engine you are talking to cannot resolve simply does not show up in the project-side pickers — the heart is remembered, the part just is not there.

Adding, editing and deleting

Who may change the catalogue

Adding, importing, editing and deleting are reserved for the Manager and Admin roles. When you do not hold one, the whole action row is replaced by a note that says why:

• signed in without the role: Catalogue changes require the Manager or Admin role.

• signed out, where the role cannot be known at all: Sign in to change the catalogue. Adding, importing or removing components requires the Manager or Admin role.

Your role is shown on your account page (/account) as Profile: User, Profile: Manager or Profile: Admin. The account that opens a company — by signing up for a company pvSpline does not know yet, by buying a plan, or as the first account pvSpline opens for it — starts with the Manager role, so it can change the catalogue from its first sign-in. A colleague who joins the company later starts with the User role: they can browse the catalogue and mark favourites, but not change it, until someone who manages your company gives them the Manager role (Roles, and what a manager can change); nobody can change their own role.

The role is re-checked when the page loads, when you switch category, and whenever you come back to the browser tab. The buttons being hidden is only the affordance; the engine refuses a change from an unauthorised caller regardless.

Add

Add part… opens the component editor in place, above the table, on the form for the category you are in — panel, inverter, physical or virtual battery, combiner box, cable, mounting kit, generator, pump or tariff. Every one of the ten categories has a full hand-entry form; see The component editor.

Before saving a new part, the app checks whether its name is already in the category. If it is, it asks — nothing has been written at that point:

• Replace the existing one — save as its own entry and mark the old one replaced. The old entry keeps its identity, so projects that already use it keep working; it just stops appearing in the browse list.

• Keep both — two entries side by side, no succession recorded.

• Cancel — back to the form.

Edit

Edit appears on each row you own and reopens the editor pre-filled with that part's values. It is offered only for one row at a time, and only for parts that are yours — a component shipped with the application has no editable form behind it.

Editing is a merge: only the fields you actually fill are written, and a field you leave blank keeps the part's stored value. A hint above the form says so. The form fills itself in two passes — first from the row on screen, then from the part's full stored specification — so a moment after the editor opens the deeper fields fill in too. Anything you typed while that was in flight is left alone.

If the full specification cannot be loaded, a warning note under that hint says so: This part’s full specification could not be loaded, so only the values shown in the list are filled in. Empty fields still keep their stored values when you save. A blank field then means “not loaded” rather than “no value”. You can still save — a blank field, and a tick box you have not touched, keep what the part has stored — or click Cancel and open the editor again to retry the load.

If the specification you type reproduces one the catalogue already holds, the save is refused: two parts with the same specification are the same part, so saving would only add a copy. The editor then offers Use the existing component, which resolves to the incumbent and applies the name you typed to it. Renaming it cannot move its identity, because display names are not part of the specification.

Delete

Two routes, both role-gated and both confirmed:

• One row. The row's Delete button opens a confirmation dialog that asks Remove the entry ``X'' from the catalogue? This action is permanent.

• A selection. Select several rows, then use Delete (n) in the action row or the Delete key while the table has focus. One confirmation covers the batch: it names the first eight entries and counts the rest.

Either way nothing is removed until you click Confirm delete in the dialog; Cancel, Esc or a click outside the dialog leaves the catalogue as it was. The dialog opens with Cancel focused, so a stray Enter deletes nothing.

Components shipped with the application show no Delete button at all, and are dropped from a selection before the confirmation — so the count you read is the count that happens. A selection with nothing deletable in it offers no delete at all: the action-row button is absent and the Delete key does nothing.

Your own parts across machines

Parts you create or import are stored in your company's shared components, so they follow you to another machine and to another browser.

Against the cloud service this shared store is where your parts live, full stop: the shared engine carries the components shipped with the application and nothing else.

Importing PVsyst datasheets

pvSpline reads PVsyst's native component files directly, so a manufacturer datasheet you already have for PVsyst drops straight in. Like every catalogue change, an import needs the Manager or Admin role.

Import a file… opens your browser's file picker, filtered to the extensions the open category accepts (the hint beside the button spells them out). A progress bar shows Reading…, Uploading… and Processing… as the file moves; a small file is through all three before the bar has anything to show.

Size ceilings

The app checks the file's size before it reads a single byte, so an oversized file is refused immediately and by name rather than after a full upload. The ceiling is about 25 MB per file.

The refusal names the file, its size and the limit that applied. No component datasheet comes anywhere near that number; the check exists so that picking the wrong file gives a clear answer instead of a stalled upload.

Importing against the cloud service

On the cloud service an import is stored into your company's shared components rather than into the shared engine's own catalogue, so your parts stay yours. Two differences follow. There is no review step — the outcome is decided by the content alone, and a re-import of something you already hold is refused outright. And if a file parses into something your company's shared components cannot hold, the app says so and nothing is stored.

Why a renamed part is still the same part

Every component in the catalogue is identified by its specification, not by a name or a serial number. That identity, the fingerprint, is not printed in the table: Copy fingerprint, in the row's Options column, puts it on your clipboard. Three consequences are worth internalising, because most of this chapter's behaviour follows from them:

• Renaming a part never changes what it is. The display name is stored beside the specification, not inside it. Rename a module to something your team recognises and every project that uses it keeps resolving to the same module.

• Two identically-named parts can be two different parts, and two differently-named ones can be the same part. Trust the fingerprint, not the label — that is what the duplicate and revision prompts are telling you when they appear.

• Entering the same specification twice gives you one part. Type a datasheet by hand on your laptop and a colleague type the same datasheet on theirs, and the two of you end up referring to the same component, with no coordination and no shared identifier.

This is also why a corrected datasheet becomes a new entry rather than overwriting the old one, and why “replacing” a part only marks the old one retired: a simulation you ran last year must keep resolving to the component it was actually run with.

The part picker

Inside the component editor, Pick from the catalogue… opens a picker: a compact single-select browser over the category you are authoring, headed Pick a component to start from. It has a Search box (server-side, narrowing as you type) and a Favourites checkbox like the main table's, plus a count line. Its search is plainer: what you type is matched as one piece of text against every column, so the key:value grammar and the term chips belong to the main table only. If the category already has favourites, the picker opens with the favourites filter on; that filter narrows the rows the picker has loaded, so in a large category type part of a hearted part's name to bring it in. The picker lists the components shipped with the application; your own parts are not offered there.

Select a row and click Choose, or double-click the row, and the whole form — name included — is pre-filled from that component. Cancel closes the picker and changes nothing.

The picker hands over one page of the category at a time. When the page comes back full, the count line says so — refine the search rather than scroll, because the search runs over the whole category on the engine.

The component editor

The editor opens in place, above the table, titled for the category you are in — Add a panel reference, Add an inverter, Add a physical battery, Add a virtual battery, Add a combiner box, Add a cable, Add a generator, Add a pump, Add a tariff — or Edit “X” when you are editing. You cannot change a part's category mid-edit: the category is the tab you are on.

Its layout is one wrapping grid of fields in a fixed order, headed by Pick from the catalogue… and by the Name field, which applies to every category. Number fields carry their unit inside the box. Dropdowns all offer a leading — entry, which means “leave unset” on a new part and “keep the current value” on an edit.

Save stays disabled until the entry is valid. A name is always required for a new part, and a module additionally needs a Width and a Height greater than zero — the layout and shading engine relies on real geometry. A line under the form spells the rule out whenever the button is disabled.

Blocks that appear when you need them

Several groups of fields are hidden until something unlocks them, so the form only ever shows what applies:

Hidden fields are not written. A field you cannot see cannot silently change the part.

The IAM curve preview

Under a module form, a small read-only plot draws IAM curve (incidence-angle modifier), 0° to 90° for the model and parameters currently selected: the Martin-Ruiz analytic curve, or the ASHRAE curve for the b₀ you typed. It redraws as you type, so you can see what your coefficient actually does to the beam component at grazing incidence.

Select .PAN profile and the plot is replaced by a note: that profile is the tabulated angular response an imported datasheet declares, so there is no formula to preview — it comes in with the file or not at all.

What each category's form covers

• PV module — 50 fields: rated power and physical size, the STC electricals and their temperature coefficients, cell technology, bifaciality and ground clearance, the IV-curve model, mounting and tracking (including backtracking and wind stow), bypass diodes and the maximum series fuse, the maximum system voltage (IEC and UL), the IAM model, and the two optional concentrator blocks.

• Inverter — 20 fields: AC and DC power, the MPPT count and window, DC current and string limits, AC voltage and phases, the two weighted efficiencies, standby and night-time draw, the microinverter flag, and the hybrid battery-bus block.

• Physical battery — 9 fields: capacity, charge and discharge power, round-trip efficiency, the state-of-charge floor, cycle and calendar life, bus voltage and installed cost.

• Virtual battery — 7 fields: the banking cap, the withdrawal fee, two subscription forms, the billing period, the conversion ratio and whether credits expire.

• Combiner box — 24 fields: manufacturer and type, DC inputs and fusing, AC output and breaker, protection and ingress rating, the operating temperature window, monitoring and metering, the series resistance that drives its Joule losses, and the enclosure dimensions.

• Cable — 19 fields: cross-section and gauge, conductor material and insulation, the voltage and temperature envelope, resistance and reactance per km, three install-context ampacities, and three certification flags.

• Mounting kit — 16 fields: manufacturer and year, what the kit mounts on, the rails (direction, count, bar length, overhang, profile and end caps), the attachment and its spacing, the clamp range and the earthing clips, and the two facts the permit package states: the modules' height above the surface and the finish.

• Generator — 10 fields: rating in kW and kVA, power factor, the two fuel-curve coefficients, the minimum load fraction and the CO₂ factor.

• Pump — 8 fields: technology, submersible flag, nominal power, maximum flow and head, the start-up threshold and the wire-to-water efficiency.

• Tariff — 16 fields in three groups: identity and validity; the buy side (granularity plus the flat or peak/off-peak rates); the sell side and grid charges. All the rate fields are shown at once and only the ones your chosen granularity uses are kept.

Every one of those fields is documented individually in Field reference.

Editing a project's inverter

Attaching an inverter to a project, and setting the few properties that belong to the project rather than to the datasheet, is not done here. The catalogue curates; the project views consume. Those controls live on the one-line diagram in Diagram (Electrical Design & the One-Line Diagram), on each inverter row: a Pick from favourites list, an Import a .OND file… button that loads a datasheet straight into that row (and, with the Manager or Admin role, also files the inverter in this catalogue), a weak-grid backup flag (only meaningful on a hybrid device, since a grid-tie inverter cannot island), and master/slave grouping with its unit count; From favourites… beside the inverter list adds a new row from your favourited inverters.

Fetching measured production online

Pulling measured production from an inverter manufacturer's cloud (Enphase, SolarEdge, APsystems, SolaX) to compare against a simulation is a Production feature, not a catalogue one — what it retrieves is a production time series, not a component datasheet. See Running a Simulation & the Production Tab for the provider list, the credentials each one needs and how the fetched series is used.

Component prices

Per-unit prices are a property of the project, not of the catalogue, so they are set where they are used: in the Component prices… section of the Batch view's auto-sizing study (Batch Simulation & Scenario Sweeps). It lists the modules and inverters the sweep can consider — your favourites plus the project's current parts — each with an editable price per unit. The prices are stored on the project, so they travel with it. They shape the candidate grid Auto-size builds, provided its Install rate is set: with Sweep modules ticked, only the modules you have priced compete (and only once every module the project already uses is priced too), each candidate is costed with its module's price on top of that rate, and — once Site Tmin (cells) and Site Tmax (cells) are set on the Diagram tab — the inverter sized for each module is picked among the inverters you have priced. A sizing study ranks its candidates on them the same way (The sizing study).

Field reference

Browse controls

Component editor — shared

Module — power, geometry and STC electricals

Module — optics, mounting and tracking

Module — concentrator optics (HCPV)

These six fields appear only when Cell technology is multi-junction, and are pre-filled with the usual values for a 500× triple-junction stack so a concentrator module is never saved with no optics at all.

Module — low-concentration optics (LCPV)

All the fields below appear only while LCPV concentrator optics is ticked. Each carries its own fallback, shown in its label: leave it blank and the engine uses the value calibrated for the concentrator type you picked.

Inverter

Physical battery

Virtual battery

A virtual battery is a supplier product, so its “spec” is commercial. Note that two fields are both labelled Subscription; they are told apart by the unit inside the box.

Combiner box

Cable

Mounting kit

The rail count and the attachment spacing are the supplier's, from their structural study for the site's snow and wind loads: the form records them, it does not compute them.

Generator

Pump

Tariff

Every rate field is shown at once; only the ones your chosen Granularity uses are kept when you save. Rates are in cents per kWh.

Table columns by category

Every category's table leads with the heart column, Manufacturer, Name and the gear derived badge, and ends with the Options column and its row actions. Between them sit the category's own datasheet columns:

• PV modules: Technology, width and height in metres (shown under their raw keys), Power (W), Voc (V), Isc (A), Vmpp (V), Imp (A), µVoc (mV/°C), µIsc (mA/°C), γ Pmp (%/°C), NOCT (°C), TRef (°C), Rshunt (Ω), Rsh0 (Ω), Rsh exp, Bifaciality, Series cells, Parallel cells, Bypass diodes, Diode Vf (V), Concentrator, Concentration (C), Optical η, Acceptance (°), IAM model, IAM b0, and the two rating columns Max system voltage, IEC (V) and Max system voltage, UL (V), shown only when a listed module states a rating.

• Inverters: Single/Three, AC power (kW), DC power (kW), Max DC voltage (V), Vmpp min (V), Vmpp max (V), Max DC I (A), V AC nom (V), Inputs, MPPT count, Euro efficiency (%), Hybrid, Vbatt min (V), Vbatt max (V), Vbatt nom (V), η CEC (%), PThresh (W), Aux loss (W), Microinverter.

• Physical batteries: Kind, Capacity (kWh), Max charge (kW), Max discharge (kW), Round-trip efficiency, SOC floor, Cycles, Duration (years), Voltage (V), Install cost (€).

• Virtual batteries: Kind, Capacity (kWh), Fee (€/kWh), Subscription (€/month), Subscription (€/kWp/month), Conversion, Period, Expires at period end.

• Combiner boxes: Year, Type, Inputs, Input fuse (A), Max input I (A), V input max (V), Phases, Max output I (A), Output cross-section (mm²), Breaker (A), V AC (V), Surge, DC switch (A), IP, T min (°C), T max (°C), Monitoring, Energy meter, R series (Ω), W (mm), H (mm), D (mm), Weight (kg).

• Cables: Year, Cross-section (mm²), AWG, Material, Insulation, V DC (V), V AC rating (V), T max rating (°C), Outer ∅ (mm), Weight (kg/km), Ω/km, X/km, I free-air (A), I conduit (A), I buried (A), UV, Buriable, Halogen-free.

• Mounting structures: Mounts on, Rail direction, Rails / run, Bar length (m), Overhang (m), Rail profile, Attachment, Attachment spacing (m), End caps, Earthing clips / module, Frame min (mm), Frame max (mm), Module height (mm), Finish, Year.

• Generators: Year, Type, P (kW), kVA, cos φ, F0 (L/h/kW), F1 (L/kWh), Min. load, CO₂ (kg/L).

• Pumps: Technology, Submersible, PNom (kW), Max flow (m³/h), Max head (m), Threshold (W), η (%).

• Tariffs: Country, Currency, Buy mode, Flat rate (c/kWh), HP winter (c/kWh), HP summer (c/kWh), HC winter (c/kWh), HC summer (c/kWh), Sell rate (c/kWh), Sell escalation (%), Grid, Subscribed (kVA), Capacity (€/kVA·month), Overrun, Valid from.

A cell with no value shows —; a yes/no cell shows a tick or —. Hovering a row's manufacturer or name tells you where the part came from — Library entry (read-only) or User entry, plus Derived from a hand-edited spec where that applies, and, on a retired part, which entry replaced it.