Alectrona
Commercial servicesThe core work is designing and installing commercial solar and storage over 50 kWp. These are the things that sit around it: the energy infrastructure for EV charging, a tariff model that checks your system is on the right deal, an honest read on roof rental and free solar, and brand-agnostic inverter replacement when one fails. Each is described as exactly what we do, and no more.
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.
A commercial solar system rarely sits on its own. It powers vehicle charging, it earns or loses depending on the tariff behind it, it can be funded in ways that change who owns the asset, and one day a part of it will need replacing. The services below are the work Alectrona does around the core install. We have kept the scope on each one honest, because the quickest way to lose a finance director is to claim something we do not actually do.
We design and install the solar, the battery storage and the electrical infrastructure that powers commercial EV charging, and we specify and integrate the charge points into that design. That is the energy side of the problem. We are not a charge-point manufacturer, we do not run a charging network, and we do not bill your drivers. What we do is the part that decides whether charging is affordable and whether it can connect at all: solar and storage to feed the chargers, load management so the chargers and the building share the available supply, and the DNO capacity case when the demand is more than the existing connection can carry.
We model your system against your actual import and export tariff and flag where a different deal would lift the return. A time-of-use tariff, a better export rate, the interaction between a battery and the right tariff that compounds the benefit of each. We are solar and storage engineers, so this is an engineering check rather than a switching service. We do not switch your supplier and we do not trade energy on your behalf. The supplier decision stays with you or your broker. We give you the modelled numbers to make it with.
Under roof rental, a third party funds, owns and operates the system on your roof and you take discounted power or a rent. It can suit a building that will not or cannot spend the capital. We will tell you straight whether it fits, and the honest starting position is that owning the system outright keeps the most of the saving. A roof rental or a PPA is a long agreement on your roof for an asset you do not own, and it brings real questions on a sale, a refinance or a lease end, and on who maintains the system across that term. We will set the route against capex and let the numbers decide.
The inverter is the part of a solar system most likely to need attention across its life, and a failed or end-of-life inverter stops generation until it is dealt with. Through the sister operation Solar Tech Support, replacement is brand-agnostic: a like-for-like swap where that is the right call, an upgrade where the system has moved on, with the compatibility, the sizing and the process handled by an engineer rather than a brochure.
If you are not sure which of these you need, that is a normal place to start. We begin from the building and the load, not from a price list, and route the economics to the finance pages and the ROI and payback guide rather than quoting a from-figure here.
Four, all built around the core job of designing and installing commercial solar and storage over 50 kWp. The energy infrastructure for EV charging, which is the solar, the storage and the electrical side that powers the chargers. Energy tariff optimisation, where we model your system against your actual tariff and flag a better deal. Roof rental and free solar, where we give you the honest, capex-first read on a third party owning the system on your roof. And inverter replacement, brand-agnostic, through the sister operation Solar Tech Support. Each is scoped to what we genuinely do as engineers, with the economics routed to the finance pages rather than a from-price.
No, and we are careful about saying so. On EV charging we are the energy side: we design and install the solar, the storage and the electrical infrastructure that powers the chargers, and we integrate the charge-point hardware. We are not a charge-point manufacturer, we do not operate a charging network, and we do not run or bill the charging. On tariffs we model your system against your real import and export deal and flag where a better tariff would lift the return, but we are not an energy broker or a switching service. We do not switch your supplier or trade energy for you. That decision stays with you or your broker, and we give you the numbers to make it.
Because owning the system outright keeps the most of the saving, and that is the honest starting position for most commercial buildings that can fund it. Capex is the primary, recommended route here. Roof rental and a PPA have their place when the capital is not available, but they put a long agreement on your roof for an asset you do not own, and they raise real questions on a sale, a refinance or a lease end, and on who maintains the system across the term. We will say straight whether one of those routes fits your situation, and we set every funding route against capex on the finance pages so the numbers, not a sales preference, decide.
There is no price list. The figure comes from the on-site survey and a PV*SOL model run against your half-hourly load. The EV energy work depends on your existing connection and whether a DNO capacity case is needed, tariff modelling on your meter data, inverter replacement on the unit and the access. We give you a fixed figure once we have surveyed the building. The commercial solar cost guide explains what moves it, and the finance pages set out how it can be funded.
The survey reaches you quickly from our Yorkshire base, so the early steps move fast. After that, the programme is paced by the G99 connection to the distribution network operator, which across Yorkshire and North and North East Lincolnshire is Northern Powergrid, rather than by travel or the lead time on panels. We do not put a date here, because it depends on your supply. A dated programme comes with your proposal, and the installation timeline guide walks each stage.
Charging, a tariff question, a funding route or a failed inverter. We start from your site and your load, model it, and come back with an honest answer rather than a from-price.