How the installation works: the Elvy journey from first call to finished system

One of the most common questions we get is how the process works, from the first call to solar panels, battery and heat pump being in place and up and running. That's a fair question. Letting a company into your home for an installation that has to work for 15 years is not a decision made in passing.

This article walks through the entire customer journey step by step. What happens, who does what, and where in the process it often takes a little longer than you'd hoped.

It all starts with a form. You enter your address, your approximate electricity use and what type of heating you have today. It takes a few minutes and requires no technical knowledge. The purpose is for Elvy to make an initial assessment of whether an all-in solution is reasonable for your particular home, and if so, roughly what it would cost per month.

You're not committing to anything at this stage. It's an expression of interest, not an order.

An adviser from Elvy will be in touch shortly. The call isn't a classic high-pressure sales pitch, but a review of your home and your energy use. The adviser goes through your current consumption, sizes a preliminary solution and puts together an estimate of what an energy subscription would cost per month compared with your situation today.

If the timing is right, many customers go from first call to signed agreement in about a week. Others need more time, compare with other options or want to talk it through with a partner. Both are normal. What matters is that you understand what you're saying yes to before you sign.

That question always comes up, and the answer is worth being clear about. The fixed monthly cost includes the equipment (solar panels, battery and heat pump), the installation itself, a full operating guarantee for the entire contract term and ongoing optimisation of the system via smart control. If something breaks, it's Elvy's responsibility to fix it at no extra cost.

So what you're paying for isn't the hardware. It's that your heating and electricity generation should work, year after year, without you having to think about it.

Before the installation can be planned, someone actually needs to see the house. A technician comes to your home and goes through the roof, façade, existing heating system, electrical panel and any challenges in the installation environment. The visit usually takes a couple of hours.

This step lets the preliminary estimate from the first call be refined. Sometimes the visit shows that the number of solar panels can be adjusted, or that the placement of the heat pump's outdoor unit needs some thought. In rare cases, conditions come to light that affect the solution more significantly, and then Elvy comes back with an updated proposal before anything is ordered.

Once the agreement is signed and the site visit is done, the equipment is ordered. In parallel, an application for grid connection is sent to your local grid owner. This is often the phase where the timeline starts to vary the most, and it's worth explaining why.

There are around 180 grid companies in Sweden, and their processing times differ enormously. Some handle an application in a few weeks. Others can take two to four months. In some cases, the grid company requires the local grid to be reinforced before connection can be made. That's a process outside Elvy's control and one that unfortunately can extend the overall timeline.

This part accounts for around 80 percent of the variation in installation time that customers experience. It's not the installation itself that takes a long time. It's waiting for an external party to say yes.

Once the equipment has been delivered and the grid connection is ready, the installation itself is booked. For a typical house, the work takes 1–3 days across solar panels, battery, inverter and heat pump. Everything is installed by certified technicians, and you need to be home for certain parts but not the whole time.

Internally, Elvy has a requirement that the installation should be completed within 40 days of the process starting. It acts as a limit for what the customer should have to put up with, and it governs how the project is prioritised.

Once everything is in place, the system is started and connected to Elvy's software for automatic energy optimisation. It controls generation, storage and consumption based on the electricity price, the weather forecast and how your home actually behaves. The optimisation happens continuously and requires nothing from you.

From this point on, you're up and running. The heating takes care of itself, the solar panels produce electricity that's stored or used directly, and you pay your fixed monthly cost. If something should break, you call Elvy. Not an installer, an insurance company or a service provider.

From expression of interest to a commissioned system, it takes one to three months in most cases. At best, where the grid application goes quickly and no extra steps are added, it can land at under a month. In cases where the grid company requires longer processing or grid reinforcement, it can drag out longer than that.

What we can control internally, we try to keep as short as possible. What we don't control, above all the lead time at the grid owner, we're open about from the start so you know what to expect.

The customer journey is clear and simple. It consists of a call, a site visit, a little waiting on external parties and a few days of installation. What separates an energy subscription from an ordinary purchase isn't the process itself, but who bears the responsibility afterwards. At Elvy, we're the ones who own the equipment, optimise it and fix faults if they arise. That's why it's called a subscription and not an invoice.

Want to see what an energy subscription would cost for your particular home? Fill in your details and we'll come back to you with an estimate based on your consumption and your current heating.