Alectrona
ServiceThe value of a solar-and-storage system depends heavily on your import and export tariff. We model your design against the tariff you actually have, then flag where a different tariff would lift the return.
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.
Two buildings with the same array and the same battery can earn very different returns, because the money turns on the tariff underneath them. What you pay to import, what you are paid to export and when those prices apply decide how much a solar-and-storage system is worth to your business. That is an engineering and modelling question, and it is one we take seriously at the design stage rather than leaving to chance.
Here is the honest scope. We are solar and storage engineers, not an energy broker or a switching service. We optimise the system to your tariff and flag the opportunities the modelling reveals. The supplier decision, and any switch, stays with you or your broker. What we bring is the design that makes the most of whichever tariff you run, and a clear-eyed view of where a better tariff would compound the return.
The starting point is your real data, not a generic assumption. We take your half-hourly consumption profile and your current import and export rates, and we run the proposed system against them in our modelling. That shows how much of your generation you self-consume, how much you export, and what each of those is worth under the prices you actually pay and receive.
From there the picture is specific to your building. A site that runs hard through the working day uses solar where it is most valuable, against expensive daytime import. A site that exports a large share leans more on the export rate. The modelling makes those flows visible, so the funding case rests on your numbers rather than a headline. The wider economics are set out in the ROI and payback guide.
Once the system is modelled against your current tariff, we can see where a different structure would do better, and we flag it. The two that come up most often are a time-of-use import tariff and a better export deal.
We put these in writing as opportunities, with the modelled, indicative effect and the assumptions behind them. We do not present a single guaranteed saving, because tariff prices move and your load changes. What you get is the shape of the opportunity, honestly framed, so you or your broker can act on it.
Solar on its own ties your value to when the sun shines and when the building happens to be running. A battery breaks that link. It lets you decide when you draw from the grid and when you push to it, which is exactly what a time-of-use tariff rewards.
The two reinforce each other. The right tariff makes the battery worth more, because there is a real price gap to work across. The battery makes a time-of-use tariff usable, because you can store energy when it is cheap and spend it when it is dear. We model that interaction for your specific profile, so the storage is sized to the tariff opportunity rather than to a round number. The mechanics are covered in full on the time-of-use arbitrage page.
We are clear about the line. We model and optimise the system, and we flag the tariff opportunities. We do not switch your supplier, run a switching service or trade energy on your behalf. That decision is yours, or your energy broker's, and we are happy to hand the flagged opportunities to them so they can negotiate from an informed position.
This is the same engineering-led, honest approach we take across the business. The sister operation, Solar Tech Support, provides independent, brand-agnostic monitoring and diagnostics, so once the system is running you can see whether it is performing against the modelled case. If your tariff changes later, the system is already built to make the most of it, and the modelling can be revisited.
Honest tariff modelling runs on your own numbers. The most useful input is your half-hourly consumption data, the record of how much electricity the building drew in each 30-minute period, which a metered commercial supply produces automatically. Paired with a recent bill showing your unit rates, standing charge and export terms, it lets us run the proposed array and battery against how your building actually behaves rather than a generic load curve. If you do not have the half-hourly file to hand, we can talk you through requesting it from your supplier or meter operator; the half-hourly metering guide explains where it comes from.
A commercial electricity price is more than the headline unit rate, and the model reflects that. Your bill carries network and policy charges on top of the energy cost, and on larger supplies some of those are themselves time-banded, which changes when generation and stored energy are worth most. We set those out in the network charges guide. The export side has its own ceiling: the volume you can push back is capped by the connection your Distribution Network Operator, Northern Powergrid across Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire, has granted, so the model respects that cap rather than assuming you can export everything the array produces.
A time-of-use import tariff and a good export deal are the everyday levers, but a battery can open the door to flexibility arrangements that pay for moving or holding load at particular moments. Demand-side response, capacity payments and similar schemes reward a building that can shift its grid draw on cue, and storage is what makes that possible. Where the modelling suggests your profile and battery could qualify, we flag it as an opportunity, with the indicative effect and the assumptions behind it. The mechanics of those revenue streams sit on our peak shaving, grid services and capacity market pages.
Here is the boundary, stated plainly. We are solar and storage engineers. We design and size the system, and we model where flexibility could be worth pursuing. We do not aggregate your asset into a flexibility market, trade energy on your behalf or run a virtual power plant; that is the job of a licensed aggregator or your energy broker, and the contract sits with them. What we do is build the system so it is technically capable of taking part, then hand the flagged opportunity over with the modelling that supports it.
Tariff work matters at the design stage because it sets the value side of the investment case. The more of your generation you self-consume against expensive daytime import, and the better your export is priced, the stronger the return, which is why we model self-consumption explicitly rather than assuming a figure. Those modelled flows feed straight into the economics, and we keep that honest: any payback or return is presented as modelled from your data with the assumptions disclosed, not promised, because tariff prices move and your load changes. The full economic picture lives on the finance pages, and costs are survey-led, so we publish no price here; the honest place to size that up is the commercial solar cost guide.
One mechanism worth naming is capital allowances. A qualifying commercial solar and storage asset can attract tax relief that improves the after-tax return, which is a structural part of the case rather than a tariff lever. We can point you to how it works on the capital allowances page, but the specifics turn on your own tax position, so confirm the treatment with your accountant. We are engineers and modellers, not a finance company or tax adviser; we give you the system, the honest numbers and the mechanisms, and you and your advisers take the financial decisions.
No. We are solar and storage engineers, not an energy broker or a switching service. We model your designed system against the import and export tariff you already have, then flag in writing where a different tariff structure, such as a time-of-use import rate or a better export deal, would lift the return. The decision to switch supplier, and the negotiation, stays with you or your energy broker. We make sure the system is built to make the most of whichever tariff you land on.
A battery lets you decide when you draw from and push to the grid, rather than being tied to whenever the sun shines and the building happens to be running. On a time-of-use import tariff you can store cheaper off-peak or self-generated energy and use it through the expensive periods, and you can hold export back for a better-priced window. The storage and the tariff compound: the right tariff makes the battery worth more, and the battery makes a time-of-use tariff usable. We model that interaction for your half-hourly profile. The detail sits on our time-of-use arbitrage page.
We give you modelled, indicative figures from your actual half-hourly data and your current tariff, not a headline saving presented as a promise. Tariff prices move and your load changes, so we show the shape of the opportunity and the assumptions behind it rather than a single guaranteed number. The economics, including how export revenue and self-consumption stack up, are set out on the ROI and payback guide and the SEG and export page.
It helps a great deal. Your half-hourly consumption data and a recent bill showing your import and export rates let us model the system against your real profile rather than a generic assumption. The closer the input data, the more honest the indicative figures. If you do not have the half-hourly data to hand, we can talk you through requesting it from your supplier or meter operator.
Then we will tell you that plainly. Tariff optimisation is about flagging a genuine opportunity rather than manufacturing one. If the modelling shows your existing tariff already suits the designed system, we say so and focus the engineering effort where it actually moves the return. We would rather give you a straight answer than invent a reason to change.
No published price. Tariff modelling is part of the engineering survey and proposal stage, which is survey-led, so we publish no figure on this page. A meaningful number depends on your array, your storage and your site, and the honest way to reach it is to look at the system. Once we have your half-hourly data and a recent bill, the tariff modelling is built into the proposal we put to you rather than charged as a separate line. The wider economics, including how self-consumption and export revenue stack up, sit on the commercial solar cost guide and the SEG and export page.
It runs alongside the design and proposal stage rather than adding its own timeline, because the modelling is built into the system design, not bolted on afterwards. The main thing that paces it is getting your half-hourly consumption data and a recent bill in front of us; once those are to hand the indicative figures come back with the proposal. If the data has to be requested from your supplier or meter operator first, that step sets the pace, and we can talk you through it. There is no fixed week-by-week schedule, because every site differs, and we would rather give you an honest sequence than a made-up date.
Whether it is 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.