Alectrona
Commercial solar financeCapital allowances are the tax relief you claim when you buy a commercial solar system outright, and they are a core reason capex gives the best return of any funding route.
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.
Capital allowances are not a funding route in their own right. They are the tax relief that sits on top of buying a system outright, which is why they belong to the capex route rather than to a lease or a power purchase agreement. When you own the asset, you own the allowances; when a funder owns it, they do.
This page explains how that relief works in plain terms, so a finance director can see why capex keeps the most of the return. It is written to be accurate rather than optimistic, and every specific figure for your business should be confirmed with your own accountant or tax adviser.
For tax purposes, solar PV is treated as a special-rate (integral-features) asset. The relief that matters most is the Annual Investment Allowance, which gives a 100% first-year deduction on qualifying plant and machinery within a £1m annual limit. Applied to a solar install bought outright, that means the cost can be written off against taxable profits in year one rather than over many years, which is the part of the return that shortens the payback. This is the route's honest hook, not tax advice, and the £1m figure is the AIA limit at the time of writing.
Two things matter for accuracy. Full expensing, the separate 100% first-year allowance for main-rate plant, does not apply to solar, because solar is special-rate. The earlier super-deduction did not apply to solar either. The relief is also only worth what you have tax to set it against, and it follows ownership: claim it through capex, and it stays with you. We will not put a rate, a percentage or a pound figure on your specific position here. Those depend on your profits, your accounting period and your wider capital spend, so they are a question for your accountant or tax adviser.
Capital allowances reward ownership, so they reinforce the capex case rather than standing alone. If you lease the system or take it on a power purchase agreement, the allowances generally sit with whoever owns the asset, not with you, which is one reason a PPA largely benefits the funder. Capex is still the route we recommend wherever the capital is available, because you own a roughly 25-year asset from day one and keep both the saving and the first-year relief.
The honest caveat is that allowances only have value if there is taxable profit to relieve and if you have AIA headroom left for the year, since the £1m limit is shared across all your qualifying capital spend. None of this is financial or tax advice, and we do not act as your tax adviser. Treat the framing here as indicative, model your own numbers from a site survey, and confirm the position with a qualified accountant before you commit.
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.