Privacy Policy

GridBeater is operated by The Wattage Pty Ltd (ABN 16 679 197 927), an Australian solar installation business. When you use GridBeater, you're dealing with us.

Questions about this policy? Email us at hello@thewattage.com.au.

When you upload your electricity bill, we collect:

• Your contact details — name, email address, and phone number (optional). Used to send you your solar ROI result and, if you request one, a quote.
• Your electricity bill — the PDF or image you upload. Used to extract your usage data, electricity rates, retailer, and address details.
• Extracted bill data — suburb, state, postcode, daily usage (kWh), annual spend, current rate (c/kWh), feed-in tariff, retailer name, and whether you have solar. Used to calculate your personalised solar savings estimate.
• Inferred data — estimated house size and occupant count, solar system recommendation, ROI estimate. Generated by our AI analysis and used to produce your result.
• Usage data — pages you visited, whether you requested a quote, and timestamps. Used to improve the service and understand how people use GridBeater.

We collect this information because you asked us to analyse your bill. We couldn't give you an accurate solar ROI without it.

GridBeater uses AI to extract data from your bill and calculate your solar ROI. This is automated processing — no human reads your bill unless you contact us directly.

Our AI is powered by Anthropic (Claude). Your bill data is sent to Anthropic's servers, which are located in the United States, for processing. Anthropic does not retain your data after processing and does not use it to train their models. You can read Anthropic's privacy policy at anthropic.com/privacy.

If you believe the extracted data is wrong, you can correct it on the confirmation page before your result is finalised.

We use your data to:

• Calculate your solar ROI and provide your personalised result
• Send your result and any quotes you request to your email address
• Forward your contact details and bill summary to The Wattage so they can follow up if you request a quote
• Improve GridBeater's accuracy and reliability over time

We do not sell your personal information (name, email, phone, or raw bill) to any third party.

We may use anonymised, aggregated data — stripped of any information that could identify you — for the following purposes:

• Energy and solar industry research — we may publish aggregate insights such as average electricity rates by suburb, solar adoption trends, and retailer pricing comparisons. No individual is identifiable in this data.
• Sharing with energy partners — we may share anonymised data (postcode, usage profile, tariff type, solar status — no name, email, or address) with solar installers, battery manufacturers, EV charger suppliers, and energy retailers for the purpose of identifying relevant offers for households like yours.
• Referral programs — if we refer you to an energy comparison service or installer outside The Wattage's area, we may earn a referral fee. We will always disclose this at the point of referral.

Anonymised data cannot be traced back to you. We take de-identification seriously — we don't combine your postcode with your name or contact details when sharing with third parties.

We do not share your data with any other parties.

Your uploaded bill and extracted data are stored on Neon Postgres servers located in AWS Sydney (ap-southeast-2). Your data does not leave Australia except where noted above (Anthropic for AI processing, Vercel for hosting infrastructure).

How long we keep it:

• Uploaded bill files — retained for 90 days, then permanently deleted. We keep them briefly in case there's an extraction error we need to review.
• Extracted bill data and lead records — retained for 2 years for sales follow-up and service improvement, then deleted unless you ask us to keep them.
• Anonymised aggregated data — retained indefinitely. Once personal identifiers are removed, this data is no longer subject to the Privacy Act.

Under the Australian Privacy Act 1988, you have the right to:

• Access your data — request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Correct your data — ask us to fix any inaccurate information
• Delete your data — request that we delete your bill, extracted data, and lead record
• Opt out of marketing — unsubscribe from any follow-up emails at any time

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@thewattage.com.au. We'll respond within 30 days.

GridBeater uses minimal tracking. We use Vercel's built-in analytics to understand page views and performance — this collects IP addresses and browser information but no personally identifiable information. We do not use Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel, or any advertising tracking.

We use functional cookies only — session tokens to keep you logged in if you have an account. We do not use marketing or targeting cookies.

We take reasonable steps to protect your data from misuse, loss, and unauthorised access. Bill data is encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest. Our database is access-controlled and not publicly accessible.

No system is perfectly secure. If you have concerns about a specific security issue, contact us immediately at hello@thewattage.com.au.

If you request a quote, The Wattage may contact you by email or phone to follow up. You can opt out at any time by replying "unsubscribe" or contacting us directly.

We do not send marketing emails to users who have not requested a quote or opted in to receive them.

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes — especially to how we use or share your data — we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top. Continued use of GridBeater after changes are posted means you accept the updated policy.

If you believe we've breached your privacy, contact us first at hello@thewattage.com.au. We'll do our best to resolve it promptly.

If you're not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au or on 1300 363 992.