Privacy Policy

Who we are

Smarter Solar is operated by AWE Electrical Services Pty Ltd (ABN 41 673 242 630), based in Canberra, Australia.

Privacy enquiries: info@smartersolar.au

Information we collect

We may collect:

• Your name, email address and timing preferences.
• Your phone number when you request installer introductions.
• Your property address and related location and solar-property information.
• Your answers about the property, electricity use, existing equipment, priorities and plans.
• Bills and switchboard or meter-box photographs you upload.
• What you type, say or attach in the plan conversation, and the replies it shows you.
• Your preliminary plan and installer brief.
• Your marketing and installer-sharing choices, including when consent was recorded.
• Communications, enquiries, complaints and installer-introduction status.
• Technical information such as IP address, browser information, request times, errors and security events.

Some uploaded documents may contain additional identifiers. You should remove information that is not needed before uploading where practical.

How we collect information

We collect information directly from you when you use the wizard, upload evidence, contact us or request installer introductions.

We also obtain address and property information from Google's Places, Address Validation and Solar services. This can include address search terms, coordinates and imagery-derived roof information. We do not use Google detected solar arrays as a finding.

Where the structured property-data service is enabled, we send the selected address and location to Geoscape Australia to obtain provisional address, building, property and parcel information for the editable roof, storeys, existing-solar and dwelling-type findings. Where the address response does not provide enough property or parcel relationship information, we may use the same selected location for a Geoscape Land Parcels lookup. We do not send Geoscape the Google Maps Static satellite image.

To estimate how much sun your roof gets in winter, we may send your home's map coordinates and your roof's pitch and direction to PVGIS, a solar-calculation service run by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre. We do not send it your name, address or contact details.

How we use information

We use personal information to:

• Save wizard progress and provide a preliminary plan.
• Validate addresses and obtain available solar-property information.
• Email the requested plan.
• Improve the plan using bills, photographs or corrections.
• Write the conversation's replies, answer your questions and suggest answers from what you type or photograph, for you to confirm, using our AI provider.
• Create and share an installer brief when you expressly request it.
• Allow matched installers to contact you about requested quotes.
• Administer installer introductions and referral fees.
• Send Smarter Solar marketing only where you have separately opted in.
• Respond to enquiries, access requests, corrections and complaints.
• Operate, secure, troubleshoot and protect the website.
• Meet applicable legal obligations.

Automated recommendations

The wizard uses defined rules to produce preliminary information and recommendations from your answers and available third-party data. It does not use a site inspection and does not make a final electrical, engineering, financial or installation decision.

Google and Geoscape data and customer-provided descriptions can be incomplete or inaccurate. You can correct your answers or use the manual roof-description path. A qualified installer or licensed electrician must verify the property and proposed system before it is designed, quoted or installed.

AI assistance

The plan conversation uses Anthropic, our AI provider, to write its replies and read what you type. To understand what you type, we also send the answers you have already given, the roof sides in our roof model and anything you have confirmed, with personal details removed. Bills you upload and photographs you attach are read by Google's Gemini AI in Google Cloud's Sydney region. If Sydney does not answer within 8 seconds, or refuses the request, a bill or photograph is read once more through Google's global service, which may process it in another country. The AI does not work out your plan's sizes; our own rules do. When your plan is saved, we also send its figures, findings and your answers, with personal details removed, to Anthropic so it can write the short summary at the top of your plan, the one-line notes under each figure, and the questions to ask your installer that appear on it.

Before anything you type reaches Anthropic we remove names, phone numbers, email addresses, street addresses and account numbers. A first name typed on its own may still get through. We send your suburb, state and electricity network and the property information behind your plan, never your street address.

If you attach a photograph in the conversation, we store it privately as described below and send it to Google so its AI can suggest answers for you to confirm. A small, low-detail copy of any photograph, a bill included, is first sent the same way to tell a bill from equipment; a bill is then read by our bill reader as usual. A photograph can show details such as a meter number that cannot be removed before it is read.

If you ask a question, we may search public websites for the answer with Google Search, and Google's Gemini AI writes the answer from what it finds. The search includes your question with personal details removed, your state and your electricity network, never your address. To understand follow-up questions, we also send the wizard question you are answering, relevant equipment and planning choices, equipment descriptions you have confirmed (including confirmed descriptions from photos), and up to three recent question and answer exchanges, with personal details removed. Earlier AI explanations are conversational context, not verified equipment information. Google-generated answers are not sent to Anthropic. We may also use Google Search to explain switchboard photographs, using the AI's description and equipment details with personal details removed. These searches concern equipment and backup requirements, not you or your property.

We keep each conversation, with contact details removed, for 12 months in our private database in Sydney so we can check and improve the answers, then delete it.

Browser storage and cookies

While you answer the wizard's questions, we keep your answers, your conversation with our assistant, the name and email address you give us, and references to your property check, bill reading and photos in an encrypted record in Smarter Solar's private Supabase database in Sydney, so you can pick up where you left off in the same browser, or on any device from the link in a plan email you send yourself. If you choose Start again, we delete that record straight away. Your answers are not kept in your browser. It keeps only three small cookies that page scripts cannot read: a signed session cookie that holds random session numbers and whether you have passed our human check, and two encrypted cookies that let us show your property check and its map. While the page is open it holds what it is showing you, and a few short-lived notes that are deleted when you close the tab. While each save is on its way to us, and if a save fails, for example while you are offline, your browser holds a copy of your latest answers locked so that only Smarter Solar can read it, until they reach us; it is deleted then, or the next time you visit after 7 days. Mapped Google and Geoscape property results are removed from ordinary browser storage. They are encrypted and held in Smarter Solar's private Supabase database in Sydney for no more than 30 days, or, once you email your plan to yourself, until that saved plan is deleted, within 180 days of the last time you email it; the browser keeps only a small encrypted, HttpOnly reference cookie for the same period.

Each time we show you a plan, we keep an encrypted copy of that exact plan, with the answers, name and email address it was made from, so that we can show you the same plan again. A copy you never email to yourself is deleted 30 days after you last open it. A copy you email to yourself is kept for 180 days from the last time you email it, so the link in your email can reopen your plan. The link always shows your latest saved plan; changing an answer updates it. It includes the answers the plan was made from, among them the estimates from Google about your roof (sunshine hours, shade and the size of any existing panels).

The email we send you contains a link that reopens your plan on any device for 180 days. To make that work we keep two encrypted records. For 180 days, a plan-link record holds your submitted answers, the references to your property record and bill reading, and the encrypted property reference cookie. For 180 days, a saved-plan record holds the plan we emailed you, your name and email address, your submitted answers without the Google property estimates, the property address you confirmed, and your bill reading if you uploaded one. If your property information is no longer held, the link shows that saved plan. If you choose to update it, we check your address and property again with Google and Geoscape and rebuild the plan from your saved answers, so some figures may change. Opening the link sets the property reference cookie and the wizard's session cookie in that browser. The link itself is stored only as a digest.

The website and its hosting providers also use necessary technical records for delivery, security, abuse prevention and troubleshooting. To understand where people leave the wizard, we record a small set of named wizard events, such as an address being confirmed or a plan being shown, together with your wizard session's random identifier and finite answer categories. The identifier is not your name or email address, but our other records use the same identifier, so it can be linked to your plan. These records contain no name, email address, property address, bill content or uploaded file. They are stored in our private Supabase database in Sydney and deleted after 12 months. The same events, and nothing else, are also sent from our server to PostHog so we can view them as charts. No analytics script, cookie, session recording or advertising tracker runs in your browser. We will update this policy before introducing materially different analytics or advertising technology.

To show electricians serving your area, we use an approximate Australian postcode supplied by Vercel from your IP address. If you have confirmed a property address, we use its postcode instead. The estimate may be inaccurate. This feature does not create an advertising cookie or save your IP address or estimated postcode in our database, and we do not send them to the listed electricians. Following a business logo opens that business's website, where its own privacy policy applies.

Who receives information

Information may be disclosed to:

• Google, to provide address and solar-property services.
• Geoscape Australia, to provide structured address, building, property and parcel information.
• The European Commission's PVGIS service, which receives your home's coordinates and roof pitch and direction to estimate winter sunshine.
• Google Fonts, which supplies the website's typefaces. Your browser requests them from Google, which receives your IP address and browser details.
• Cloudflare, which runs a quick automated check when you enter your address to keep automated traffic off the site. It receives your IP address and browser details and does not set advertising cookies.
• Vercel, which hosts and protects the website.
• Supabase and its infrastructure providers, for private uploaded-file storage and the encrypted property record.
• Anthropic, our AI provider, for the plan conversation described under AI assistance. Anthropic does not use our data to train its models.
• Google Cloud, which reads bills you upload and photographs you attach with its Gemini AI, and answers questions you ask by searching the web with Google Search, as described under AI assistance. Google does not use our data to train its models.
• Resend and email-delivery providers, to send requested plans and authorised messages.
• PostHog, an analytics service, which receives only the named wizard events described under browser storage above, sent from our server without cookies, session recording or your IP address.
• Smarter Solar's business email inbox, which receives an alert with your name, email address, property address, answers and plan when you ask to see your plan, and your property address when you request installer introductions.
• Up to the number of installers you select, after explicit installer-sharing consent.
• Professional advisers, regulators, courts or authorities where reasonably necessary or legally required.

Smarter Solar does not sell customer personal information. Referral fees paid by participating installers are fees for requested leads and do not affect the matching criteria.

Installer sharing

You may keep your plan private or request introductions to up to three matched installers. With your permission, we share your contact details, address, plan, answers, uploaded evidence and the property information behind your plan, including roof data from Google and Geoscape, with up to the number requested. If no suitable installer is available, fewer introductions may be provided.

Installers may use the information to contact you about the requested quote. An installer's handling of information after receiving it is also governed by that installer's privacy obligations.

Storage and overseas processing

Uploaded bills and photographs are stored privately in Supabase's Sydney region and do not receive public URLs.

Some information is processed overseas:

Bills you upload are read by Google's Gemini AI in Google Cloud's Sydney region. If your upload cannot be processed, you can choose a bill range instead.

We keep the figures read from your bill alongside your bill, for the same period, so we can check and improve reading accuracy.

• Vercel's primary processing facilities are in the United States, and its subprocessors may operate elsewhere.
• Resend routes Smarter Solar email through Tokyo, Japan, while email metadata, logs and API records are stored in the United States.
• Google maintains global infrastructure and may process information outside Australia.
• Cloudflare runs its check on its global network and may process information outside Australia.
• Supabase may use support and infrastructure subprocessors outside Australia even though the project's primary file and property-record storage is in Sydney.
• PostHog stores the named wizard events in the European Union for up to 12 months.
• PVGIS is operated by the European Commission in the European Union.
• Anthropic stores information in the United States and may process it in other countries. It keeps it for a limited period under its commercial terms.
• Google reads bills and photographs in its Sydney region, or through its global service when Sydney does not answer or refuses the request. It may keep a request its systems flag for abuse checking for up to 90 days.
• Google Search may process searches outside Australia. Google keeps the search words, not linked to you, for up to three days to fix faults.

Likely overseas processing locations therefore include the United States, Japan and the European Union, with other locations possible where Google, Anthropic or authorised service-provider subprocessors operate.

Local administrative records

Smarter Solar maintains a local Excel lead register containing customer contact details, property addresses, requested products, installer matches and lead status. It is stored on an encrypted, password-protected PC and is accessible only by the operator of Smarter Solar.

Security

We use reasonable technical and organisational safeguards, including private file storage, access controls, encrypted connections, server-only credentials, an encrypted temporary provider record and reference cookie, rate limits and no answers kept in your browser. No method of electronic storage or transmission can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

Retention

• Your uploaded bill and the photos you add while answering the questions are kept for as long as the plan made from them: 30 days after you last open your plan, or, if you email the plan to yourself, 180 days after the last time you email it. If you ask for quotes, they are kept with your quote request as described below.
• If no plan is made from them, an uploaded bill is deleted 30 days after it was uploaded and other wizard files 90 days after they were uploaded.
• Quote-related files in Supabase are deleted 90 days after the quote process ends.
• If a quote process is never formally closed, quote files in Supabase are deleted no later than 12 months after the last activity.
• Quote requests (your contact details, address, plan, answers and the property information behind the plan, including Google and Geoscape roof data) are deleted 90 days after the quote process ends, or no later than 12 months after the last activity if it is never formally closed.
• If an installation proceeds, only necessary documents move into the separately governed installer job record, and the Supabase wizard copies are deleted.
• The encrypted Google and Geoscape property record and its browser reference cookie expire within 30 days, or within 180 days of the last time you email your plan to yourself. A copy of the property information behind your plan is kept with a quote request until the request is deleted, as above.
• Unfinished wizard answers, and the conversation that goes with them, are deleted 30 days after you last answered a question. If you email your plan to yourself, the answers behind it are kept for as long as that saved plan, within 180 days of the last time you emailed it.
• Alerts about new plans are deleted from our email-sending queue after 30 days.
• Plan conversations, with contact details removed, are deleted 12 months after they are written. Photographs attached in the conversation follow the wizard file periods above.
• Saved copies of plans you did not email to yourself expire 30 days after you last opened them.
• Saved copies of plans you emailed to yourself, with the answers they were made from, expire within 180 days of the last time you emailed them.
• The encrypted plan-link record behind the link in your plan email expires within 180 days, and the saved copy of the plan we emailed you expires within 180 days.
• Your plan-delivery consent record (your name, email address, timing choice, whether you opted in to marketing, and when you confirmed) is kept for 2 years after your last activity with Smarter Solar, or 2 years after you withdraw marketing consent, whichever is later. It is stored in Australia and is never shared with installers.
• Identifiable local lead records are kept only while installer introductions, referral reconciliation, enquiries or complaints remain active. They are then deleted or de-identified.
• Information required by Australian law or a court or tribunal order may be retained for the required period.

A verified earlier deletion request will be honoured unless continued retention is legally required.

Access and correction

You may request access to or correction of personal information held by Smarter Solar by emailing info@smartersolar.au. We may request the minimum information reasonably necessary to verify your identity. We will respond within a reasonable period. Where access or correction cannot be provided, we will explain why where legally permitted.

Marketing

Smarter Solar sends marketing only when you have separately opted in. Marketing may include occasional solar tips, product updates and offers. Every marketing message identifies Smarter Solar and carries its own unsubscribe link; using it records your withdrawal immediately against every plan we hold for your email address, and you can also email info@smartersolar.au with “unsubscribe”. If you opt in, your name and email address are also held as a contact in our email provider Resend’s audience list, stored in the United States, and are marked unsubscribed there when you withdraw. Your Resend contact stays marked unsubscribed after you withdraw, so you are not emailed again. Installer-sharing permission does not change your Smarter Solar marketing choice.

Privacy complaints

Email info@smartersolar.au with the subject “Privacy complaint” and describe what happened and the outcome you are seeking. We will review the complaint and respond within a reasonable period.

If you are dissatisfied, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Changes

We may update this policy when our services or information-handling practices change. The current version and effective date will remain available on this page. You can also read our Terms of Use.