Alectrona
How we workBefore anyone visits and before you spend anything, our engineer models your roof against your own consumption data and sends you a branded report with your own indicative system size, generation and financial picture, so you can decide whether the project is worth taking further.
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 enquiries for commercial solar end up at one of two extremes. Either you get a salesperson's round number with nothing behind it, or you are asked to commit to a paid site visit before you have any idea whether the roof is worth the trouble. Neither helps a finance director decide whether this is a project to pursue at all.
The free remote survey is the step in between, and it is genuinely free. An engineer takes your address and your half-hourly consumption data, models the roof from aerial imagery against your actual load, and returns a real branded report with your own indicative numbers in it. It is desktop work, so it is close rather than measured, but it is enough to tell you whether the project stacks up before you spend a penny or let anyone onto the roof.
On-site 3D drone survey before anything is specified.
A remote survey only needs two things from you, and you almost certainly already have both. There is no site visit, no form-filling marathon and no commitment at this stage.
If the half-hourly data is awkward to lay hands on, a year of bills or interval data from your meter operator gets us close enough to model from. The point is to start from your real consumption, because on a commercial site the return comes from the power you use on site rather than the power you export, and that is decided by your load shape.
The work is done at a desk by a real engineer, not generated by a calculator on a web page. We build a model of your roof in PV*SOL, the same modelling tool used on a full design, using Google Earth and aerial imagery to set the array out across the usable roof planes and to estimate orientation, pitch and the obvious shading. That modelled array is then run against your half-hourly load to show how much of the generation your business would use on site, how much would export, and how a battery would change the shape of both.
The method is the same one behind a quoted design, with one honest difference: at this stage every input is read from imagery and your data rather than measured on the roof, so it is an indicative model and not the final one. How that indicative model hardens into a measured design and a fixed price is the subject of how we quote; the remote report is simply the first rung.
You receive a real branded report written for your site, which goes well beyond a generic brochure or a one-line estimate. It sets out your own indicative figures: the system size the roof looks able to carry, the generation it should produce, how much of that your business would use, and the financial picture that follows from it.
The numbers are yours to keep and to circulate to whoever needs to see them, including a board, an accountant or a funder, so the decision to go further is taken on real modelled figures rather than a sales pitch. We do not publish those figures here, because they are specific to your roof and your load; the report is where you see them, against your own site, before a single pound has changed hands.
We are clear about what a desktop survey is and is not. Every input behind it is read from aerial imagery and your consumption data, so it is close to the truth but not measured on site. Imagery can be dated, a roof plane can be busier or smaller than it looks from above, and shading reads differently from the air than it does at deck level. The remote report is built to be honest about that rather than to flatter a number into a sale.
The step that turns indicative into measured is the on-site 3D drone survey, where our own qualified pilot flies the roof and captures it as a measured 3D model. That is the paid, higher-fidelity step, and the remote report is what tells you whether it is worth commissioning.
A roof can carry far more solar than the grid will let you switch on, and for a finance director that connection limit decides whether the headline array size is real or theoretical. A commercial system above 50 kWp is connected under the G99 engineering recommendation, which means the array has to be applied for and accepted by the distribution network operator before it can run at full output. Across Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire that operator is Northern Powergrid, and the capacity it will accept at your connection point is what caps the usable size, regardless of how much spare roof you have.
The remote report flags this early so it does not ambush the project later. From your address and the modelled array we indicate whether the size the roof wants to carry is likely to clear a G99 application or whether export may need limiting, which is far cheaper to learn at the desktop stage than after a measured survey. We do not pretend to hold a formal connection offer at this point, because only the network operator issues that. What the report does is tell you whether the grid is likely to be the binding constraint, so the figures you circulate are framed against what the connection can realistically take. How that question is then formally resolved is part of how we quote.
An indicative figure is only worth circulating if the method behind it is the same one a measured design will use, and ours is. The remote model is built in PV*SOL to the standards the final installation has to meet: the electrical design works to BS 7671, the wiring regulations, and the commissioning and inspection regime follows IEC 62446-1, the international standard for testing and documenting grid-connected PV. A commercial install is also notifiable work under CDM 2015, which places duties on the client as well as the contractor from the earliest design decisions, so modelling the roof properly at this stage is where those decisions start.
Where a figure carries financial weight we are careful how it is framed. Generation anchors such as the roughly 850 to 950 kWh per kWp a year typical of Yorkshire are indicative PV*SOL starting points read against your own orientation and shading, not a promise, and any payback or return shown is modelled rather than guaranteed, with its basis disclosed. We do not put a price on this page because the right number is site-led; the cost drivers sit in our guide to commercial solar cost and funding routes in commercial finance, and capital allowances are explained as the mechanism that applies to qualifying plant, to confirm with your accountant, never as a figure we quote. The report is written to be forwarded to a board or a funder without us in the room, and it is what tells you whether to commission the measured 3D drone survey, flown by our own in-house pilot who holds the CAA A2 Certificate of Competency and a General VLOS Certificate and is fully insured.
Yes, genuinely. The remote survey is a desk exercise: an engineer models your roof from aerial imagery against your half-hourly consumption and sends you a branded report with your own indicative figures. There is no charge for it and no site visit. The paid step is the later on-site 3D drone survey, which turns that indicative model into a measured one, and the remote report is what tells you whether that step is worth taking.
Two things: your site address, so we can pull the roof from aerial imagery, and your half-hourly electricity consumption data, so we can model the system against how your business actually uses power. If the half-hourly data is hard to get hold of, a year of bills or interval data from your meter operator gets us close enough to start. There is no long form to complete at this stage.
Close, but not measured. Every input is read from aerial imagery and your own consumption data rather than captured on the roof, so it is a sound indicative model and not the final one. Imagery can be dated, a roof can be busier than it looks from above, and shading reads differently from the air. The on-site 3D drone survey is the step that turns the indicative figures into measured ones by flying and modelling the real roof.
They are yours. The indicative numbers are specific to your roof and your load, so they live in your report rather than on this page, and they are yours to share with a board, an accountant or a funder. There is no honest published figure for commercial solar because the right answer is site-specific, which is the reason the report is personal to you rather than a headline on the website.
The remote survey is the free, desktop step that gives you indicative figures from imagery and your data, so you can decide whether to go further. The 3D drone survey is the paid, on-site step where our own pilot flies the roof and builds a measured 3D model, turning those indicative figures into measured ones that a fixed price can be built on. The remote report comes first and tells you whether the measured survey is worth commissioning.
The remote survey itself carries no charge, and it deliberately does not put a price on the installation, because the right figure is decided by your roof, your load and your grid connection rather than a published rate. What the report gives you instead is your own indicative numbers, modelled in PV*SOL against your half-hourly consumption, which is the honest basis for a budget. For how commercial solar is costed and what drives the figure up or down, see our guide to commercial solar cost; for funding and capital-allowance routes, commercial finance. Any payback or return in your report is modelled rather than promised, with its basis stated.
The remote survey is desktop work, so it turns around quickly once we have your two inputs, your site address and your half-hourly consumption data. The one variable in the timeline is usually how long it takes to release the half-hourly data from your supplier or meter operator; a year of bills can get us started while that comes through. The longer, fixed parts of the wider timeline sit later, at the measured drone survey and the grid stage, where a G99 application to Northern Powergrid runs to the network operator's own timescale. The remote report is the fast first step that tells you whether those later steps are worth starting.
We fly your roof, model your half-hourly load, and come back with a designed system and a price you can take to the board. Engineer-led from the first call to the final handover, and the years after it.