Privacy Policy
What SolarCostData collects, what it does not, how server logs and Cloudflare work, and how Google ads, cookies and consent work when ads are on.
Reviewed
SolarCostData, published by the SolarCostData Data Desk, collects very little information about visitors: there are no accounts, sign-ups, newsletters or forms. What is collected comes from ordinary server logs and, once advertising is switched on, from Google’s advertising services, which in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland run only according to the choice you make in a consent dialog.
What we do not collect
- Accounts or sign-ups. There are none, and no page asks for your name or e-mail address.
- Form submissions. There is no contact form. Contact is by e-mail only, and e-mails you send are used only to reply to you.
- Our own tracking. We do not run our own tracking pixels, fingerprinting or cross-site identifiers.
Server logs and Cloudflare
Our web server and our content delivery network, Cloudflare, record standard technical logs: IP address, browser user-agent, requested URL, referrer and time. These are used for security, abuse prevention and aggregate traffic statistics. They are not joined to any identity, and we have none to join them to. This policy does not yet state a fixed retention period for these logs; when one is set, it will be published here.
The live figures on our pages are loaded from our own servers. Your browser does not contact the grid operators whose data we show.
Storage in your browser
If you switch the site to its light theme, that preference is saved in your browser’s local storage so the next page opens the same way. It stays on your device and is not sent to us.
Analytics
We use Google Analytics 4 on the pages of this site, as described here. It receives page URLs, approximate location derived from your IP address, and device and browser type, so we can see aggregate usage. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, analytics storage is off by default until you give consent. You can opt out of Google Analytics everywhere with Google’s browser add-on; blocking scripts also prevents measurement, and every page still works.
Advertising (Google AdSense)
The site is prepared for display advertising from Google AdSense. At present the ad code is switched off while the AdSense account is reviewed, and no ads or advertising cookies are served. The rest of this section describes what happens once ads are enabled.
When ads are enabled:
- Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this website or other websites.
- Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the internet.
- Personalised ads use information such as your past browsing to choose ads. Non-personalised ads are not based on your past behaviour; they use context, such as the page you are reading and coarse location. Google states that non-personalised ads still use cookies or mobile ad identifiers for frequency capping and aggregated ad reporting.
- You can opt out of personalised advertising at Google’s Ads Settings, and opt out of many third-party vendors’ cookies at www.aboutads.info/choices.
- How Google uses information from sites that use its services is described at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.
Ads are labelled as advertising and do not influence any figure or text on the site.
Consent in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland
Google requires publishers that serve personalised ads to visitors in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom and Switzerland to use a Google-certified consent management platform (CMP) integrated with the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework. When ads are enabled, visitors in these regions see such a consent dialog before any advertising cookies are set, and can accept, reject or choose by purpose.
The site uses Google Consent Mode v2. For visitors in these regions, every advertising and analytics consent signal, including ad storage, ad user data and ad personalisation, starts as denied. Only the choice you make in the consent dialog changes those signals. If you decline, Google tags do not use advertising cookies for personalisation, and any ads shown are limited accordingly.
How to change your consent
When ads are enabled, you can reopen the consent dialog from the privacy settings link it provides on the page and change or withdraw your choice at any time. You can also clear the cookies for solarcostdata.com in your browser, which brings the dialog back on your next visit. Every modern browser also lets you block or delete cookies in general; the site works without them.
California residents
We do not sell personal information ourselves. To the extent third-party advertising cookies count as a “sale” or “sharing” under California law once ads are enabled, you can opt out through Google’s Ads Settings and www.aboutads.info/choices. You can also e-mail any privacy request to the address below and we will act on it.
Children
This site is a data reference about electricity markets and is not directed at children under 13. We knowingly collect no information from anyone, children included.
Changes
If this policy changes, the reviewed date of this page changes with it, and material changes, such as advertising being switched on, will be noted here.
Contact
Privacy questions and requests: [email protected]. See the contact page.