Alectrona
Commercial solar financeSEG and export is how you earn from the surplus your system sends to the grid, and that pays far less per unit than the power you avoid buying, so the value is in using what you generate on site.
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.
The Smart Export Guarantee, and any commercial export or wholesale arrangement that replaces it, is not a way to fund a system. It is what you earn for the units you generate but do not use, sold back to the grid. On a well-designed commercial system that is the surplus rather than the main event.
The reason matters for the whole financial case. An exported unit is paid far less than an imported one, so every unit you consume on site is worth several times more than the same unit sold back. That is why we size for self-consumption first and treat export as the way to monetise what is genuinely left over, rather than a number to lean the case on.
Export earnings sit alongside whichever funding route you choose. On a system bought outright under capex, the export income and the avoided import both accrue to you, on top of the full first-year capital-allowances relief and ownership of a roughly 25-year asset from day one. That is the route we recommend wherever the capital is available, because it keeps the most of the return in your business.
You can monetise surplus in more than one way: a Smart Export Guarantee tariff from a licensed supplier, a commercial export agreement, or selling at wholesale through an arrangement that suits your meter and volumes. Under a power purchase agreement the position is different again, because the funder owns the system and typically takes the generation, so a PPA largely benefits the funder rather than you. We will set out the export side honestly against your own consumption, never as the headline of the case.
Export suits any business that will, on some days, generate more than it can use, which is most well-sized commercial roofs at certain times. It is a genuine but modest line in the case. Treat the trade-off plainly: export pays far less per unit than self-consumption, so a design that chases export income over on-site use is the wrong design. The honest move is to size the array to the building's own demand first and let export mop up the rest.
Capex remains the better call wherever you have the capital, since you keep the saving, the export income and the tax relief, and you own the asset outright. Specific export rates vary by supplier and by arrangement and change over time, so we will not quote a figure here; we will model the realistic split between self-consumption and export from your own roof and demand, and your accountant or tax adviser can confirm how the income is treated.
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.