Alectrona
Battery brandJA Solar is a large, well-capitalised solar manufacturer whose BluePlanet liquid-cooled C&I energy storage system, around 125 kW / 261 kWh, brings a major maker into the storage line-up. We specify it where it suits your site, and confirm the fit before you sign.
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.
Most directors will know JA Solar as a panel maker. It is one of the largest solar manufacturers in the world, with a global module footprint and the financial scale that comes with it. The BluePlanet C&I storage line takes that same maker into battery energy storage, so the cabinet on your site comes from a company with the balance sheet and the reach to stand behind it.
We also specify JA Solar's panels, and that sits on a separate page. This page is about the storage product, what it is, where it fits and how we put it forward. We are brand-agnostic: JA Solar is one of several established makers we shortlist from, and the battery we recommend is decided from your data, not from a default.
Brand-agnostic: the bankable battery that fits the project.
The BluePlanet C&I energy storage system is a factory-built, liquid-cooled cabinet rated at around 125 kW and 261 kWh in its standard unit. It arrives pre-installed and pre-commissioned, so the cells, the cooling and the controls are integrated and tested before they reach your site rather than assembled from separate parts on the ground. For a director, that means a single defined product to underwrite and fewer interfaces to coordinate.
The battery uses LFP (lithium iron phosphate) chemistry, the cell type the commercial storage market has settled on for its thermal behaviour and long working life. Liquid cooling holds the cells in a tighter temperature window than an air-cooled cabinet, which helps keep capacity even across a large pack. The standard figures here are the available unit, not a quote: the system you get is sized from a survey of your site and your load.
The 125 kW / 261 kWh cabinet sits in the commercial and industrial band, the size most behind-the-meter sites over 50 kWp land in. It is built to scale: units connect in parallel, so a site that needs more than one cabinet can be grown into the megawatt-hour range from the same product line rather than switching makers as the load grows.
That scalability suits a director who wants headroom. If your demand or your generation is set to rise, a product that grows by adding matched units keeps one warranty conversation and one architecture across the whole installation. On a smaller behind-the-meter battery, a more compact cabinet from another established maker can be the better-matched choice, and the survey is there to make exactly that call.
JA Solar is one of the more established and lender-familiar names we work with. It is a large, well-capitalised manufacturer, shipping modules at very high volume worldwide, and on the module side it is a BloombergNEF Tier 1 PV maker (Q1 2026, a position we re-verify for the exact product before contract). That scale and financial standing are what a lender or insurer weighs: a maker likely to still be present to honour a warranty over the life of the asset.
We are scrupulous about where that standing applies. The Tier 1 recognition and the long deployed base belong to JA Solar's panels; the BluePlanet C&I storage line is a newer product family from the same company, and we do not carry the panel reputation across to the battery as a storage tier it has not been awarded. So we lead with the maker's scale and balance sheet, and we confirm the specific warranty, the current specification and the bankability that fits your project in writing for the exact storage product before contract.
The assurance on a commercial install over 50 kWp is the engineering stack, not a domestic scheme. The system is designed and signed off to BS 7671, commissioned and tested to IEC 62446-1, connected under G99 with the application to your network operator handled for you, and delivered under CDM 2015 on a JCT or NEC contract. The battery brand sits inside that framework whichever maker is chosen.
Our method runs the same way for every brand. An insured in-house drone survey of the roof and plant area, then a PV*SOL model of generation against your half-hourly load. Stored solar offsets expensive grid import, where export is paid far less, so the model is built around lifting the share of your own generation you actually use. The brand decision follows the numbers.
A battery cabinet over 50 kWp lands inside a stack of product and installation standards, and the maker's scale matters less here than whether the specific unit is certified to them. We confirm the BluePlanet line against the cell and system safety standards before it goes on a shortlist. IEC 62619 is the safety standard for the lithium cells used in industrial applications, and IEC 62933 is the international series covering electrical energy storage systems as a whole, from safety to performance. We name these because a large, well-capitalised maker is only an advantage if its product carries the certification a UK lender or insurer expects to see; the balance sheet does not substitute for the test report.
Fire and siting sit alongside that. NFPA 855, the standard for the installation of stationary energy storage systems, informs separation distances, ventilation and detection, and the Health and Safety Executive expects a commercial battery to be sited and risk-assessed accordingly. Liquid cooling, the design the BluePlanet cabinet uses, keeps the cells in a tighter temperature band, which is part of how a large pack holds capacity and manages thermal risk. The installation itself is signed off to BS 7671 and commissioned to IEC 62446-1, the same engineering framework set out on our battery fire safety page, so the brand sits inside an accountable stack rather than carrying the assurance on its own.
A storage cabinet over 50 kWp is rarely there to do one thing. The BluePlanet unit can hold solar that would otherwise export at a poor rate and release it across your priciest import periods, and it can sit ready to support the site through a grid event. Which of those jobs leads is set by your half-hourly data, not by the product. We model the value before we name a brand, and any saving, arbitrage spread or payment we show is modelled rather than promised, with the basis disclosed and verified against your own tariff and dispatch.
On the demand side, holding charge for your highest-demand half-hours is the mechanism behind peak shaving, which can lower the metered peak that drives capacity and red-band DUoS charges. On the market side, a battery of this scale can be a route into grid revenue through the Capacity Market, the Balancing Mechanism and ancillary services such as Dynamic Containment, all coordinated by the National Energy System Operator (NESO) under the framework Ofgem regulates. We name those markets by mechanism and never attach a per-kW-year or per-MWh figure to them on a brand page; the number belongs in a model built on your site, set out on grid services and the capacity market. Backup duty, where the cabinet carries critical load through an outage, is a separate design decision covered under backup power, and it changes how the system is configured.
Being brand-agnostic only means something if we say plainly where each maker is the stronger fit. JA Solar's advantage on storage is scale and parallel growth: the BluePlanet line is built to add matched units, so a site heading toward the megawatt-hour range keeps one architecture and one warranty conversation as it grows. Where the immediate need is a smaller, tightly matched behind-the-meter battery, a more compact cabinet from another established maker on our list can be the better-engineered choice for the load, and the survey exists to make that call honestly.
We are an independent installer and are not affiliated with JA Solar; we name the brand only to describe the product we may specify. On a hybrid-led site where the inverter and battery are designed as one system, SolarEdge or Sigenergy can carry the design, and a comparison of these options sits alongside JA Solar in the same survey. Whichever maker wins, the choice follows a PV*SOL model of your generation against your half-hourly load and a sizing exercise, never a default capacity, so the cabinet is matched to your site rather than to a catalogue figure.
Both. JA Solar is one of the largest solar module manufacturers in the world, and we specify its panels on a separate page. The BluePlanet C&I energy storage system is the same maker's battery product, so the cabinet on your site comes from a company with the scale and balance sheet to stand behind it.
It is JA Solar's commercial and industrial battery: a factory-built, liquid-cooled cabinet rated at around 125 kW and 261 kWh in its standard unit, using LFP cells. It arrives pre-installed and pre-commissioned, and units can be connected in parallel to scale a larger site into the megawatt-hour range.
The system you get is sized from a survey, not from the catalogue figure. The standard 125 kW / 261 kWh unit is the available product; how much storage suits your site comes from a PV*SOL model of your half-hourly load against your solar. We confirm the exact capacity, power rating and warranty from the live datasheet before contract.
JA Solar is a large, well-capitalised manufacturer, which is the kind of scale and financial standing a lender or insurer weighs. On the panel side it is a BloombergNEF Tier 1 PV maker (Q1 2026, re-verified before contract), but that recognition belongs to the modules, and the BluePlanet C&I storage line is a newer product family. So we frame bankability on the maker's scale and balance sheet and confirm the specific warranty and specification for the exact storage product in writing before contract, rather than assuming the panel reputation carries across as a storage tier.
No. JA Solar is one of several established makers we shortlist from. Alectrona specifies the battery that fits the project, the scale and your risk appetite, with the current product and warranty confirmed before contract. The brand follows the survey and the model, not the other way round.
We do not publish a price for the BluePlanet cabinet, because a commercial battery over 50 kWp is survey-led. The cost depends on how many units your half-hourly load justifies, the electrical and civil works at your site and the network connection. We confirm the figure against the live datasheet before contract. See battery costs or commercial solar cost for how we build a quote.
It depends on procurement of the BluePlanet units, your network operator and the works at your site. The pacing item is usually the G99 connection, applied for to Northern Powergrid on your behalf, which sets the timeline more than the cabinet itself. We survey first, model your load, then give a programme with the G99 milestone built in. We confirm current product availability before contract rather than quoting a fixed delivery date upfront.
We model your half-hourly load and your solar against a battery sized from an on-site survey, so the figure you get is yours, not a from-price. Capex first, with the bankable brand that fits the project.