Alectrona
Commercial solar financeBuying the system outright is the route we recommend wherever the capital is available: you own a quarter-century asset from day one and keep the full return inside your business.
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.
Capex means buying the solar system outright, as a capital asset your business owns. It is the simplest of the funding routes and the one we recommend wherever the capital is available, because nothing sits between you and the return. There is no funder taking a margin, no monthly charge and no power tariff to buy back. You own the panels on the roof and you keep every pound the system saves you for its working life.
The other routes on this hub exist for businesses that need the cash flow instead of the capital outlay. Each trades a share of that return for an easier balance-sheet entry. We frame every one of them against capex for exactly that reason: where you can fund it outright, outright keeps the most in the business.
You pay for the system up front and the asset goes on your balance sheet. A well-designed commercial array is a long-life asset, typically rated for around 25 years, so you carry it and you keep the saving it produces for that whole period. Because you own it from day one, the generation it offsets against your import bill is yours in full, and the surplus you export is yours to monetise through an export route. The value sits in self-consumption: an exported unit pays far less than a unit you avoid buying, so we design for using the power on site first.
Capex also gives you the tax relief in the year you buy. Solar PV is a special-rate asset, and the Annual Investment Allowance gives a 100% first-year deduction within the £1m annual AIA limit, which brings the relief forward rather than writing the cost down over many years. Full expensing does not apply to solar, and the former super-deduction did not either, so the Annual Investment Allowance is the route to the first-year deduction. That is the honest hook, not tax advice. The exact relief depends on your profits, your other capital spend against the £1m limit and your accounting period, so confirm the position with a qualified accountant or tax adviser before you rely on it.
The trade-off with capex is plain: it ties up capital. You commit the full cost up front and the asset sits on your balance sheet rather than off it. For a business with the cash, or one that would otherwise leave it earning little, that is the point, because you keep the saving and the tax relief rather than handing a slice to a funder. For a business that needs to protect working capital, leasing or hire purchase spreads the cost so the system can be cash-flow neutral, and a power purchase agreement removes the outlay entirely, though a PPA largely benefits the funder who owns the asset.
Capex is the better call wherever the capital is available and the cost of that capital is lower than the return the system earns. Grants can in principle reduce the outlay, but they exist mainly for eligible public-sector bodies and specific schemes; most private commercial sites do not qualify, so we will tell you straight whether yours does rather than build a case around money that is not there. Whichever way you fund it, your own figures come from the on-site survey and the PV*SOL model, not from a rule of thumb.
Buy the system outright as a capital asset your business owns. Nothing sits between you and the return, so where the capital is available this keeps the most in the business.
Pay for the system over time rather than all at once, so the saving on the bill helps carry the cost of the finance. The system can be close to cash-flow neutral from the start.
A third-party funder pays for and owns the array, and you buy the power it generates at a contracted rate, usually below the grid price. You get cheaper on-site electricity with nothing on the bank balance.
Indicative, not financial or tax advice. Confirm the position with a qualified accountant or tax adviser. Your figure comes from a survey-led PV*SOL model.
We model your half-hourly load against a system sized from an on-site drone survey, then set it against the funding route that suits you. Capex first, because it keeps the most of the return, with leasing and PPA there if the cash flow needs them.