Alectrona
Commercial solar by areaAlectrona is Yorkshire-based and quick to a Ripon site for commercial solar over 50 kWp, from the Melmerby business parks by the A1(M) to the city's engineering plants and the farm roofs of lower Wensleydale. We have not yet installed in Ripon, so we lead with coverage, an on-site drone survey and a load-matched design rather than a local job count.
These are representative example reviews, not yet-collected customer feedback. They are written to illustrate the kind of feedback Alectrona aims to earn and are shown as design placeholders while we gather and verify reviews from our first commercial clients. Alectrona is the commercial solar trading brand of RVTC LTD.
What set Alectrona apart was the documented design pack. We had quotes from three installers, but only Alectrona handed us a full set of drawings, a single-line diagram and a design referencing BS 7671 and the G99 connection process. The whole thing read like an engineering submission rather than a sales brochure. Our M&E consultant reviewed it and signed it off without a single query. That gave the board the confidence to release the capital.
Other firms priced our roof off a satellite image and a desktop guess. Alectrona flew an in-house drone survey, fully insured and flown by a qualified commercial drone pilot, and built a 3D model of the actual roof. It picked up plant, vents and a parapet line that a flat aerial photo had completely missed, which changed the panel layout. I would rather find that out at design stage than on the day the scaffold goes up. The accuracy of that survey is the reason I trusted everything that followed.
As a finance director I was wary of being oversold a system bigger than we could use. Alectrona modelled the array against our actual half-hourly consumption data rather than an annual total, so it is sized to what we genuinely draw on site during the day. They were honest that exporting surplus is worth far less than self-consumption, and built the design around that. The capital case stacked up because the engineering was honest, not because the numbers were inflated.
We were undecided between buying outright, leasing and a PPA. Alectrona laid out all three side by side with the pros and cons of each against our balance sheet, instead of pushing the one that pays them best. They were clear about where a PPA makes sense and where capex wins, and pointed us at our own accountant for the tax treatment. The survey and design took a little longer than I expected, but the thoroughness was worth the wait. Genuinely consultative.
The install crew were tidy and well run, and worked to a clear CDM 2015 plan with a proper site induction and RAMS. What impressed me most was the handover. We received a full commissioning pack with the IEC 62446-1 test results, certification, O&M documentation and an as-built record for our maintenance team. As the people who have to live with this asset for the next twenty years, having that paperwork in order matters enormously. Nothing was left loose.
I expected the usual hard sell and got the opposite. After surveying our site Alectrona told us one roof section was not worth covering because of shading, and that a smaller, well-sited array was the better investment than filling every square metre. There was no commission-driven upselling and no pressure. For a six-figure capital project, that straight talk is exactly what you want from the people advising you. We will be using them again on our second site.
Alectrona is the commercial arm of RVTC LTD, working across Ripon and the wider HG4 area for rooftop and ground-mount solar above 50 kWp. We are Yorkshire-based and reach Ripon, Boroughbridge, Masham and the Harrogate and Thirsk fringes quickly, so a site visit is straightforward to arrange. North Yorkshire's only city has a compact economy with a surprisingly significant engineering and manufacturing presence for its size, and very little of that roof area is yet generating its own power.
A system this size is a capital asset that runs for two decades or more, so it earns proper engineering rather than a quick quote. Our in-house insured drone pilot flies a 3D survey of the roof, we model the array in PV*SOL against your own half-hourly consumption, and the installation is designed to BS 7671 and connected under a G99 application to the local network. We are honest that this is coverage and capability rather than a list of finished local installs, because we have not yet installed in Ripon itself.
Ripon's commercial roof stock is concentrated in two places, and each drives a different solar case. The first is the engineering and manufacturing fringe. Econ Engineering, the UK's largest manufacturer of gritters and salt-spreading vehicles, has manufactured in Ripon since 1969, on a purpose-built site on the edge of the city from 1980, and employs more than 200 staff, with a large roof-and-yard footprint of the kind that suits a substantial array; the firm has also set out plans for a new headquarters. FB Taylor, a cable-installation business established in Ripon in 1976, is one of the city's largest private employers. These are named as context for the local economy and the building stock, not as customers of ours. A manufacturing or assembly plant draws a steady weekday load from machinery, compressed air, paint and welding plant and lighting through the working day, which is the load shape that lets a well-sized array be consumed on site rather than exported.
The second is the Melmerby cluster beside the A1(M) at Junction 50. Ripon Business Park, operated by Potter Space on Melmerby Green Lane, is a managed industrial and distribution estate of more than 60 acres roughly a mile and a half from the motorway, with the broad, lightly pitched warehouse roofs that take a clean panel layout. Barker Business Park sits alongside it at Melmerby Green Lane and hosts around two dozen companies. Those distribution and trade roofs run lighting, racking, handling plant and refrigeration through trading hours, again matching the daytime generation curve. Beyond the estates, the district runs out into lower Wensleydale, where farm buildings, grain stores and rural enterprises carry year-round ventilation and refrigeration loads on roofs that often sit on weaker rural feeders.
Two more local factors shape the work here. Ripon has no railway station, the passenger line having closed in 1967, so the city's commercial access is entirely road-based via the A1(M), the A61 between Harrogate and Thirsk and the A6108, which keeps activity tied to the Melmerby corridor and the main routes. And the closure of Claro Barracks, an Army site dating to the First World War, with its Clotherholme redevelopment of around 1,300 homes plus a neighbourhood centre and employment land, signals new commercial and mixed-use floorspace to come. We size each roof to its own metered load rather than a single Ripon template.
Every Ripon design starts with an on-site survey rather than a satellite guess. Our in-house drone pilot, insured and qualified to A2 CofC and GVC standard, flies a 3D survey of the roof, capturing pitch, orientation, shading and the real usable area. That model feeds a PV*SOL simulation run against your half-hourly load, so the array is sized to what the building actually uses rather than a number pulled from a roof area.
The survey travels to Ripon exactly as it does anywhere in Yorkshire. Whether the roof is a distribution unit on Melmerby Green Lane, an engineering plant on the city's fringe or a steading out in lower Wensleydale, the pilot comes to you and the design is built from what the drone records on the day.
The distribution network operator for Ripon is Northern Powergrid, and any system over 50 kWp connects under a G99 application to them before it energises. G99 is the engineering approval that lets a generator of this size run in parallel with the grid, and it governs how much you are permitted to export. We prepare and manage that application and the technical correspondence as part of the project rather than leaving it with you.
There is no named constrained primary we would point to in Ripon, and we will not invent one. The honest position is that headroom is assessed site by site against Northern Powergrid's local network, and on the rural feeders out towards Wensleydale, and at the Melmerby estates near Junction 50, the export position is worth confirming early because it can shape the design. Where headroom is tight or the network limits export, we design to it from the start with an export limitation scheme, and where it improves the case, battery storage to hold surplus generation on site rather than push it to a constrained rural feeder.
A fair number of commercial and rural roofs across the Ripon area already carry solar, including FiT-era arrays from the last decade now running on ageing inverters with little or no monitoring, often left behind by an installer who has since moved on. Through our sister operation Solar Tech Support we take on independent, brand-agnostic operation and maintenance and the takeover of those older systems, whoever installed them and whatever the panels and inverters are, with monitoring, fault-finding, string testing and repair to keep an ageing asset earning.
The rural spread of this part of North Yorkshire gives the work a particular shape, because an underperforming array on a Wensleydale farm building or a Melmerby estate unit can lose yield quietly for years before anyone notices it on the bill. We will not publish a fixed response-time promise we cannot stand behind for Ripon specifically. What we will do is assess the system on site, tell you honestly what it is producing against what it should, and agree a maintenance scope that suits the site and how critical the output is.
How the team engineers rooftop solar for a football stadium, matching a large venue roof to an event-driven match-day load. A representative example of the team’s stadium work.
Read the case studyA representative large flat-roof distribution-centre array designed to a daytime logistics load, using half-hourly modelling, an in-house drone survey and an export-limited G99 design to maximise self-consumption.
Read the case studyLast updated June 2026
Yes. We are Yorkshire-based and cover Ripon and the HG4 districts, out to Harrogate, Boroughbridge, Masham and the Thirsk side, for commercial solar over 50 kWp. We have not yet completed an install in Ripon itself, so we are upfront that this is coverage and capability rather than a local job count. The on-site drone survey and a PV*SOL design matched to your metered load come to your site regardless.
The distribution and trade units at Ripon Business Park and Barker Business Park at Melmerby beside the A1(M), the engineering and manufacturing roofs on the city's fringe, and the farm buildings and rural enterprises across lower Wensleydale. These carry steady daytime demand, which lets a well-sized array be consumed on site rather than exported. The firms occupying those estates describe the local economy; they are not our clients.
The distribution network operator for Ripon is Northern Powergrid, and a system over 50 kWp connects under a G99 application that we prepare and manage. There is no town-wide constraint we would claim here; export headroom is assessed for each specific site, and on the rural Wensleydale feeders it is worth confirming early. Where it is limited we design in a controlled export limit and, where it helps, battery storage to hold generation on site.
Yes. Through our sister operation Solar Tech Support we provide independent, brand-agnostic operation and maintenance and take over older systems, including FiT-era arrays on commercial and rural roofs across the Ripon area that are now on ageing inverters. We assess the system on site first, report honestly on what it is producing against what it should, and agree a maintenance scope that suits the site rather than a fixed guarantee we cannot stand behind.
There is no Ripon price and no per-mile rate, because the figure comes from the survey and the PV*SOL model rather than a from-price. A system over 50 kWp is sized to one building's roof and one site's half-hourly load, so a distribution unit at Ripon Business Park on Melmerby Green Lane, an engineering plant on the city's fringe and a grain store out in lower Wensleydale will each carry a different array and a different number. We fly the on-site drone survey, model the array against your metered consumption, and put a costed design in front of you. Our pricing approach is the same wherever you are; what changes is your roof, your load and the export position on your part of the Northern Powergrid network rather than your postcode.
Quickly, because we are Yorkshire-based and the survey comes to you. Ripon sits off the A1(M) at Junction 50 with the A61 and A6108 feeding the city, so reaching a roof at Melmerby, on the engineering fringe or out in lower Wensleydale is straightforward to arrange, and the drone survey travels there as it does anywhere in Yorkshire. The overall programme is set by the G99 connection with Northern Powergrid and the design and procurement, not by travel time. Once we have surveyed the roof and modelled it in PV*SOL, the G99 application and the network's response are usually the longest single step for a system this size, and on the rural Wensleydale feeders it is worth confirming the export position early. We give you a realistic timeline for your specific site rather than a fixed promise we cannot stand behind.
Wherever you are in the region, the on-site drone survey comes to you and the PV*SOL model sets the figure. Send us the site and the half-hourly load, and we will come back with a designed system.
