Alectrona
FundingIn a roof rental or "free solar" deal a third party funds, owns and operates the system on your roof, and you take discounted power or a rent for the space. It removes the capital question, but the funder takes the upside, and you sign a long agreement on your building while the asset on it stays theirs. We will tell you straight whether it fits.
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.
"Free solar" is the offer you have probably been pitched: an investor pays for the array, installs it on your roof and either sells you the power below grid price or pays you a rent for the roof space. Nothing comes out of your capital budget, and the panels start working from day one. It is a real model, and for the right business it has a place. It is also frequently sold as something for nothing, and it is not.
We are commercial solar and battery engineers rather than a finance company, so we have no reason to push you towards a funder's deal or away from it. The straight position is this: where you have, or can borrow, the capital, owning the system keeps the most of the return in your business. Roof rental and a power purchase agreement suit a no-capital situation, and they carry real downsides that deserve to be on the table before you sign a long agreement, commonly fifteen to twenty-five years, on your building.
The two phrases cover the same family of arrangement, where the asset on your roof belongs to someone else for a long term.
In both, the system is financed, owned and operated by a third party. That is the point of the model and the source of every downside that comes with it. We set out how a PPA works in detail on the commercial PPA page.
None of these makes a roof deal wrong. They make it a decision to take with your eyes open, because a roof rental or PPA is a long commitment on your building.
The detail of the rate, any annual price escalator, the service obligations and the end-of-term options is where these deals are won or lost. Those terms deserve close legal and financial review.
Capex, buying the system outright, is the route we recommend wherever the capital is available, and the reason is simple: owning the asset keeps nearly all of the return inside your business. You own a long-life asset from day one, you keep the full saving on your import bill, the export income is yours, and, subject to your own tax position, you can claim the capital-allowances relief that a funder would otherwise take rather than handing it to a third party.
If protecting working capital is the issue, there are routes that keep you as the owner. Leasing and hire purchase spread the cost so the system can sit close to cash-flow neutral while you still hold the asset and its tax position. Roof rental and a PPA only make sense where buying and financing are both off the table, or where keeping the asset off your books matters more to you than the return. We are happy to set owning, financing and a funder's deal side by side on your own modelled figures, so you choose on the facts. See the capex case and the honest comparison of funding routes.
No. There is no capital outlay from you, which is the appeal, but the funder pays for the system because it keeps the value the system produces. You take cheaper power or a roof rent; the funder owns the asset, can claim the capital allowances subject to its tax position, and takes most of the long-term return. It is a way to avoid the up-front cost rather than a system you get for nothing.
Where you have, or can borrow, the capital, buying outright keeps the most of the return in your business, so it is the route we recommend. Roof rental and a PPA suit a no-capital situation but hand the upside to the funder. Leasing and hire purchase sit in between, spreading the cost while you keep the asset. We will model all of them against your own roof so you can choose on the facts.
It can. A funder's lease or PPA gives a third party long-term rights over part of your building, and a buyer, a lender or a landlord has to accept and work around it. That can slow a sale, complicate a refinance and raise questions at a lease end. Have your solicitor review the agreement against your property and your plans before you commit.
That depends on the contract, which is exactly why it needs reading. The system needs maintaining for its whole life, and the agreement sets out whose job that is, who carries the risk if the roof needs work or replacing, and what happens to the kit at the end of the term. Get the maintenance, roof and end-of-term terms clear up front.
Yes. We survey your roof with our own drone, model the system in PV*SOL, and set owning, financing and a funder's deal side by side on your real figures. We will tell you straight whether a roof rental or PPA fits or whether owning serves you better. The decisions on finance and tax are yours and your advisers'; we give you the engineering and the honest numbers to make them.
Our work is survey-led, so we do not publish a figure here. What we cost is the engineering: a drone survey of your roof, a PV*SOL model of the system that would sit on it, and owning, financing and a funder's deal set side by side on your own numbers. We are engineers rather than an energy broker or a finance company, so we do not set the rent or the power rate a funder offers and we take no cut of a funder's deal. The rent or the discounted-unit price in a roof rental or PPA is the funder's to quote and yours to negotiate; we give you the independent figures to judge whether their offer is fair. For what a system itself costs to own, see commercial solar cost and the finance options.
The engineering part is quick: a drone survey and the PV*SOL modelling that lets us compare owning against a funder's deal take days rather than months. The arrangement itself runs to the funder's timeline rather than ours. A roof rental or PPA is a long agreement on your building, commonly fifteen to twenty-five years, and the legals, the funder's due diligence and any Northern Powergrid connection approval for the export sit outside our control and usually set the pace. We do not draft or sign the funder's contract; your solicitor reviews it against your property and your plans. We give you the survey and the honest numbers up front so the decision is not what holds things up.
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.