Alectrona
Commercial solar by areaAlectrona is Yorkshire-based and quick to a Skipton site for commercial solar over 50 kWp, from the Snaygill Industrial Estate to the new roofs at Wyvern Park. We have not installed in Skipton yet, so we lead with an on-site drone survey and a load-matched design, and we make no claim to a local job count we do not hold.
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 Skipton and the surrounding BD23 districts for rooftop and ground-mounted solar above 50 kWp. We are Yorkshire-based and reach Skipton, Gargrave, Keighley, Ilkley and Settle quickly, so a site visit is straightforward to arrange. Skipton is the historic market town and gateway to the Yorkshire Dales, anchored by a nationally significant financial-services employer, a base of light manufacturing and engineering, and a steady tourism and retail trade, with new commercial floorspace still being added at the edge of town.
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 the town.
Skipton's commercial roof stock falls into an older established estate and a wave of new-build employment space, and the two carry different solar cases. Snaygill Industrial Estate on Keighley Road, around the BD23 2QR postcode, is the town's principal established industrial area, host to manufacturing and engineering firms of the kind found at Guyson International, Waterhouse Pressings and JBA Bentley. That is densely packed factory and trade-unit roof stock, much of it 1970s and 1980s, with steady weekday demand from machinery, compressed air, extraction and small power. Union Business Park sits within Snaygill and adds managed commercial and office units. On this kind of older estate the structural read of the roof matters as much as the electrical design, because the original purlins and decks were never drawn with a panel array in mind.
The newer half of the picture is at the edge of town. Wyvern Park, the c.58-acre employment-led scheme brought forward by HBD, is planned to deliver around 250,000 square feet of industrial and office space across units from roughly 1,180 to 50,000 square feet, which means large flat and portal-frame roofs of the sort that suit a clean panel layout from day one. Broughton Hall Business Park, on the Skipton outskirts within a c.3,000-acre estate, holds 50-plus companies in office and workshop space, including the Broughton Hive, and Acorn Business Park adds a cluster of detached office buildings. Skipton Building Society is headquartered at The Bailey on Harrogate Road and is one of the largest single employers in the area, the kind of large office estate whose daytime load self-consumes generation well. Off Gargrave Road on the Gargrave side of town, Skipton Auction Mart, run by Craven Cattle Marts at BD23 1UD, brings a large agricultural-shed roof area to the same district.
The named firms and employers here describe the local economy and the building stock; they are context for the type of site we design for in Skipton, not clients of ours, and we make no claim that they are. Across all of it the value comes from using generation on site against a daytime bill rather than exporting it cheaply, so we model the real half-hourly load for each building before sizing anything.
The on-site survey that anchors every design travels to Skipton exactly as it does anywhere in Yorkshire. Our in-house drone pilot, who holds the A2 CofC and GVC and is fully insured, flies a 3D survey of the roof so the design is built on the real structure, orientation, shading and usable area rather than a satellite guess. On Skipton's older Snaygill stock that detail earns its place, because the pilot reads pitch, parapets and the condition of ageing coverings without anyone walking the roof to find out.
That model then feeds a PV*SOL simulation run against your half-hourly load, which is what turns a Skipton roof into a system size you can put a business case to. Whether the site is a packed trade unit on Keighley Road or a new portal-frame shed at Wyvern Park, the pilot comes to you and the layout is only fixed once the roof and its limits are accounted for.
The distribution network operator for Skipton is Northern Powergrid, whose Yorkshire licence covers the town, and any system over 50 kWp connects under a G99 application to them. Skipton sits towards the western edge of that licence area, where some far-outlying BD23 postcodes can border the neighbouring network, so we confirm the exact distributor against the site MPAN before making any connection claim rather than assuming it. The town core and its industrial and business areas are firmly Northern Powergrid.
For a commercial array the G99 process is where the export position is set, and it is worth resolving early because it shapes the design. We do not assume a named constraint for your postcode; we confirm the available capacity with Northern Powergrid for the actual site, and where the network limits export an export limitation scheme can hold the system within those terms while the bulk of the generation is still used on site. On a Snaygill engineering unit or a Wyvern Park office roof with a heavy, self-consumed daytime load, much of the output never leaves the building, which often makes the connection more straightforward than the headline kWp suggests. We handle the application and the network correspondence as part of the project.
A number of commercial roofs across Skipton and the wider Craven district already carry solar from the Feed-in Tariff years, now a decade or more into their working life and in many cases left without proper support after the firm that fitted them 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 and repair to keep an ageing asset earning rather than quietly drifting out of specification.
We do not publish a fixed response-time promise we cannot yet stand behind for Skipton specifically, because the honest answer depends on the site, the kit and how critical the output is to the building. What we will do is survey an existing array on a Snaygill unit or an estate roof on the town fringe, report honestly on what it is actually producing against what it should, and agree a maintenance scope in writing before you commit to it.
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. Alectrona designs and installs commercial solar above 50 kWp across Skipton and the BD23 area, including the Snaygill Industrial Estate, Wyvern Park, Broughton Hall Business Park and out to Gargrave, Keighley, Ilkley and Settle. We are Yorkshire-based and reach the area quickly for a site visit. We have not yet completed installs in the town itself, so we lead on our coverage, our engineering and the on-site drone survey we bring, rather than on a local track record we have not earned yet.
The established factory and trade-unit roofs on Snaygill Industrial Estate off Keighley Road, the new industrial and office space coming forward at Wyvern Park, the office and workshop units at Broughton Hall and Acorn business parks, and large estates such as the Skipton Building Society head office at The Bailey and the auction mart sheds off Gargrave Road. These carry steady weekday loads, which lets a well-sized array be consumed on site rather than exported. We confirm the case for your building by modelling the array in PV*SOL against your own half-hourly metered load.
The distribution network operator for Skipton is Northern Powergrid, and a system over 50 kWp connects under a G99 application to them. Skipton sits near the western edge of the Yorkshire licence area, where some far-outlying BD23 postcodes can border the neighbouring network, so we confirm the exact distributor against the site MPAN before any connection claim. We manage the G99 application as part of the project, and where the network limits export an export limitation scheme keeps the system within those terms while the bulk of the generation is still used on site.
Yes. Through our sister operation Solar Tech Support we provide independent, brand-agnostic operation and maintenance and can take over systems installed by other firms, including older Feed-in Tariff-era arrays on commercial roofs across Skipton and the Craven district. We survey the installation whatever its make, report honestly on what it is producing against what it should, and agree a maintenance arrangement suited to the asset rather than a fixed guarantee we cannot stand behind everywhere.
There is no flat figure and no per-mile rate, because a system above 50 kWp is sized to your building rather than priced from a list. The cost follows the survey and the PV*SOL model: the usable roof area and condition from the drone survey, the array size that your half-hourly metered load can actually consume, the structure and mounting the roof calls for, and any export or grid works the connection needs. A packed older trade unit on Snaygill behaves very differently from a clean new portal-frame roof, so the only honest cost is the one that comes out of modelling your actual site and load. We give you the figures in writing after the survey, with the assumptions shown, and the same survey-led approach applies whether the site is in Skipton or anywhere else in Yorkshire.
Getting to site is quick. Alectrona is Yorkshire-based, and Skipton sits on the A65 and A59 corridors, so the in-house drone pilot comes to you and a survey visit is straightforward to arrange across the BD23 area and out to Gargrave, Keighley, Ilkley and Settle. The visit itself is a matter of hours. The overall programme, though, is governed by the G99 connection to Northern Powergrid rather than by how far we drive. Because Skipton sits towards the western edge of the Yorkshire licence area, we confirm the distributor against the site MPAN first, then the network application and its response time set the schedule far more than travel time does. After the survey we give you an honest, site-specific timeline rather than a fixed promise, since the connection and the roof works are what actually drive it.
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.
