Why we built Glow and Flow

So why did we build Glow and Flow?

At Payaca we've always been open to integrating with the specialist apps our customers want to use. Over the last couple of years we've built out our public API and launched an MCP server so others can build on Payaca, and that doesn't change. We still think there's a lot of potential in customers bringing their own AI agents and apps to work alongside Payaca.

But designing the energy system has become such a big part of how our customers win and deliver work that we couldn't leave it outside. We tried hard to make the integrated journey work, and it still fell well short of what we want. There was too much copying and pasting, too much double keying, and too many versions of the truth about what was actually going on the roof. Payaca is the system of record for our customers, and if they're going to scale installations, and ultimately help upgrade and electrify the world's energy systems, the journey from enquiry to install has to be simple from end to end.

We also know we can build good apps, we already have the platform to do it on, and AI agents are already working across Payaca. So we built Glow for solar and storage, and Flow for heating and cooling. Both are in limited release.

What Glow does

You drop a pin on the property and Glow pulls in high-resolution imagery, finds the roof faces and lays the panels out. You choose the panels, inverter and battery from Payaca's catalogue, and each product carries the manufacturer's datasheet, so the right spec sheet goes out with the proposal without anyone having to find it.

Shading is assessed for you. For each roof face with panels on it, Glow builds a horizon profile from the surface model around the array, adds any objects traced on the roof, counts the shaded segments on the MCS sun path chart and works out the shade factor. The chart goes into the estimate, which is what MIS 3002 asks you to give the customer. If you redraw a face by hand, the estimate says that array wasn't assessed rather than pretending it was.

The estimate itself is MCS compliant. It includes the MIS 3002 performance estimate table, worked from the MCS zone, orientation and pitch of the actual roof with the shade factor for each array, and the MCS battery information, with the notes both standards require printed as they're written. It also says the roof was evaluated remotely from imagery rather than on site, because that's true and the standard expects you to say so.

Why it matters that it's inside Payaca

The reason we wanted design inside Payaca, rather than next to it, is what happens after the design. The kit on the design becomes the priced items on the proposal, those become the materials list for the job, and the materials list becomes purchase orders to your suppliers at their prices, or a draw from your own stock at what it actually cost you. The purchase orders sync to Xero, so the margin on the job is visible from the day you quote it rather than when the accountant catches up.

The survey, the DNO application, the install schedule and the service plan are all on the same project, so nobody in the office has to open another system to see what the surveyor designed.

Flow

Flow gives you a heat pump estimate from your enquiry form. The customer fills in the form on your website, Payaca pulls their EPC (or uses their answers where there isn't one), works out the heat loss, picks the heat pump and cylinder from your own appliance list, takes off the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant and gives you an indicative estimate to send before anyone books a survey.

It's a quick estimate, not a room by room heat loss, and your design tool still does the full design. What it saves you is the rough sizing on every enquiry, most of which never become jobs, so your surveyors can spend their time on the ones that will.

Dave

Dave is the AI agent built into Payaca. If you ask him to create a solar design for a property, he'll build one from the analysed roof faces with sensible default equipment, and then tell you what he found. On one of our test roofs he pointed out that the system would generate about one and a half times what the house uses, and suggested a battery or fewer panels might suit it better. That's the kind of call a good surveyor makes, and now the office can see it before anyone goes out.

Dave already builds automations for you to check and switch on, edits document templates, writes reports from your own data and reviews your account setup, and he's been doing that for months. Glow gives him the roof to work with too.

Still open

Glow is in limited release because we want a small group of installers using it on real jobs and telling us what they need from it before we open it up more widely. If you already quote solar through Payaca, book a walkthrough and we'll switch it on for your account.

We've spent years building the system that runs the job for installers in the UK, the US and Australia, and design was the big piece still sitting outside it. It's just the beginning. We're still open to integrating with anything better, and we always will be.