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Getting started

Getting Started: Your First Project

Updated 24 July 2026·7 min read

A project moves through five stages: project details, bill data, consumption upload, solar & battery sizing, and the recommendation. Enter the tariff from a real bill (or let the AI extract it from a PDF), upload interval meter data as a CSV, and Amperage models every viable system size against your actual load — ending in scenario cards and a proposal you can export.

Amperage sizes solar from the bill, not the roof: you give it what the site actually pays and consumes, and it models every viable system against that. A project walks through five stages, in order — each one unlocks the next. The in-app guided tour covers the same ground interactively the first time you open each page; this is the reference version.

1. Project details

Name the project (usually the customer’s business name or site address), link it to a client, and set the location. The state and address matter more than they look: they select the weather data the production model uses and the incentive schemes the project is eligible for.

2. Bill data

Enter the tariff from a real electricity bill — flat rate or time-of-use, plus demand charges and daily supply charges where they apply. Two ways to do it:

Unsure what a line on the bill means? The glossary covers TOU windows, demand charges, and daily charges.

3. Consumption

Upload interval meter data as a CSV. Column detection and cleaning are automatic — you verify the mapping, and the page charts the consumption profile. Look at the shape: daytime load is what solar can offset directly, and evening peaks are what a battery would need to cover.

4. Solar & battery

Pick a system size from the recommendations or dial in your own, and toggle battery analysis on if storage is on the table. Behind the scenes this builds the sizing matrix — every solar size crossed with every battery size, each modelled hour-by-hour (how the modelling works).

5. Recommendation

The verdict page: four scenario cards picked from the matrix with fixed rules (how the recommendations are picked), the sizing matrix itself, a Design Your Own section, and the trade-off table. Choose the scenario you want to lead with, then export — a PPTX presentation deck or a PDF proposal, branded with your company details.

Want the interactive version? The first time you open each stage, the guided tour walks the page with you. On the Recommendation page you can replay it any time with the “How to read this page” link in the Sizing Matrix header.

Related docs

How Are the Recommendations Picked?The exact rules Amperage uses to pick its four recommended solar and battery systems from the sizing matrix — Energy Ideal, NPV Maximising, Grant Maximising and Self-Sufficiency Maximising.How the Modelling WorksWhat sits behind every Amperage number: TMY weather matching, PVWatts-style solar production, hourly battery dispatch simulation, and the lifetime financial model.Australian Solar Incentives ExplainedSTCs, LGCs, VEECs and the NSW PDRS explained: which Australian solar incentive schemes apply to a project, how they are valued, and how Amperage applies them automatically.

See it on a real bill

Create a free account, load a customer’s bill, and watch the full model run on real numbers.