Village Energy is based in Perth, WA. We are an energy technology company established in 2017. Village Energy works with energy companies to address energy challenges by using real-time grid-edge technology to tap into the millions of Distributed Energy Resources like rooftop solar, batteries, EV’s, and smart appliances. Village Energy is helping energy companies rethink their energy systems whilst delighting their customers and helping the environment. Village Energy has built a solution tailored specifically to solving the challenges of the energy transformation.

Personal information you provide us through the Service includes: Information used to authenticate an individual with something they know, such as passwords, PIN, questions like mother's maiden name; Information that uniquely identifies a specific individual such as name, user-name, unique identifier, picture; Information that may describe an individuals origins and lineage such as preferred language; Information that captures or describes an individuals behaviour or activity, online or off such as browsing behaviour on our website or mobile app, call logs, links clicked, household and device or appliance energy usage; Information about historical energy usage and decisions being past energy consumption data, past energy plans, past purchase decisions relating to energy such as rooftop solar, battery storage and appliances; Information about an individuals solar energy such as energy production and solar installation information, device and system configuration settings, appliance usage and panel details; Information that identifies an individuals financial account such as credit card details or bank account; Information about things that an individual owns such as appliances, houses (rented or owned) and other personal possessions; Information about an individuals previous transactions related to energy such as bill payments, income from energy exports, loans for distributed energy resources, energy rebates, subsidies or grants; Information communicated to or from an individual such as text, images, audio, video, digital signatures, records of telephone conversations, emails, notifications, voice mails, along with the metadata associated with the files; Information about a device that an individual uses for personal use such as IP address, Mac address, browser fingerprint; Information that provides a mechanism for contacting an individual such as email address, physical address, telephone number; Information about an individuals location such as GPS coordinates and country as they relate to our hardware devices and use of our interfaces; Other information that we may collecr which is not specifically listed here but which we will use in accordance with this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection. In addition to the personal information above, we may also collect the personal information below through customer research as part of pilot projects to trial and develop our Service: Information about what a person knows or believes in relation to energy; Information about an individuals preferences or interests for the purpose of segmenting and marketing such as opinions, intentions, interests, likes and dislikes; Information that describes an individuals characteristics shared with others such as their age range, household type and size, geographic information, partners and dependents; Information about an individuals credit standing as it relates to energy payments such as energy account debt, defaults, arrears; Information about an individuals education or professional career such as job title, education-level and employment status; Information about an individuals family and relationships such as family structure as they are relevant to energy usage within their household;

We may use your personal information for the following purposes and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection: to provide, operate and improve our Service; provide information about our products and services or those of our partners or energy utilities; establish and maintain your user profile on the Service; enable security features of the Service, such as by sending you one-time-passwords via email or text, and remembering devices from which you have previously logged into the Service; facilitate social features of the Service, such as providing chat or messaging functionality; communicate with you about the Service, including by sending you notices about your energy consumption and production, energy plans you are subscribed to or may be interested in, announcements, updates, alerts, support, service related matters, and administrative messages; communicate with you about energy events, plans or offers; understand your needs and interests, and personalize your experience with the Service and our communications; provide customer support and maintenance for the Service; and respond to your requests, questions and feedback. For research and development. We analyze your use of the Service (including your personal information such as demographics) to improve the Service, to develop new products and services, and to market and promote our business. To send marketing and promotional communications. We may send energy-related marketing communications as permitted by law. Recipients of our marketing communications will have the ability to opt-out of our marketing and promotional communications as described in the Opt out of marketing section below.

We share your personal information as described below with the following entities: With your Consent. We may share your personal information with your consent or as otherwise instructed by you. Service providers. We may share your personal information with third party companies and individuals that provide services on our behalf or help us operate the Service (such as payment processors, customer support, hosting, analytics, email delivery, marketing, database management, as well as for installation or maintenance of the Services.) Third Party Energy Providers. We may obtain or share your personal information with third-party energy provider partners or enable third party energy provider partners to collect information directly via our Service. Professional advisors. We may disclose your personal information to professional advisors, such as lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us. Governmental Authorities and Private Parties. We may share your personal information in connection with protection of rights, fraud prevention and safety, as described above.

In this section, we describe the rights and choices available to all users: Access or Update Your Information. You may review and update certain personal information in your account profile by logging into your Account or by contacting us at info@village.energy. Opt out of marketing communications. You may opt out of marketing-related communications by following the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions or by contacting us at info@village.energy, Even if you opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us you may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing communications. Cookies & Browser Web Storage. We may allow service providers and other third parties to use cookies and similar technologies to track your browsing activity over time and across the Service and third party websites. Privacy settings. We may make available certain privacy settings on the Service, such as options to control how and whether we share your data with installers. If available, you may exercise these controls using the settings section in both mobile and web applications. Choosing not to share your personal information. Where we are required by law to collect your personal information and you do not provide it or you ask us to delete it, we may not be able to provide the Service to you. Additionally, we may not be able to provide you with the Service or the quality of the Service may be affected if (1) you do not provide personal information when requested (2) you withdraw consent previously given or (3) you later ask to delete it.

You can contact us at info@village.energy. We encourage you to get in touch if you have any questions or concerns, or to provide feedback.

The solar inverter is the box that converts direct current (DC) electricity into alternating current (AC) electricity. Put simply, it's the part of your rooftop solar system that makes the electricity from your solar panels useable. Unlike solar panels, which are mounted on the roof, the solar inverter is placed on the wall outside your home or inside in somewhere like your garage or laundry. It is installed undercover and ideally in the shade. There are three main types of solar inverters; stand alone inverters, grid-tie inverters and battery back up inverters. And there are lots of brands of inverters.

Most wall mounted solar inverters have a brand logo on the front, such as Fronius, SMA, Growatt. They also usually display the model on the front too. If you go to your solar inverter and it is not clear what brand and model the inverter is, you can look for a label that should be affixed to the inverter that will give you its details. Sometimes the label is out of sight and may be stuck to the bottom or side of the inverter. It will look like the image below. On the label below, you can see the Fronius logo and the Model No. Fronius Symo.

This may come as a surprise to most people but energy utilities don’t have real-time information about their customers’ rooftop solar. When someone adds solar to their home or business, all the utility can see is that the customer’s electricity usage drops; they can’t see how much energy a rooftop solar system offsets energy use. This makes it very challenging for utilities to manage their energy network in the most efficient way. Because utilities don’t have an accurate understanding of how much solar energy is being generated by rooftop systems, it can be difficult for them to balance solar with conventional forms of electricity generation to meet customer demand. That’s why we need to be able to see and coordinate solar and other flexible energy assets on the energy grid. For your rooftop solar, we do this by connecting to your rooftop solar via a smart device. Sometimes your rooftop solar has not been set up by the installer to communicate, which means you will need to access your rooftop solar setting to make sure communications are enabled. This might seem like a complicated task but we have developed easy step-by-step instructions for all of the rooftop solar brands we support. You can access these step-by-step instructions below. Be aware that this can take some time, so allow about 15-20 minutes. If you are having trouble setting up communications, you can contact your rooftop solar installer and they can set up communications for you.

The process for manually finding your solar inverter IP address depends on the make. Use the links below to see how to do this for your solar brand: Fronius - https://youtu.be/jHjE2tK08ok SMA - https://youtu.be/P1Tpz8TB2eo (see 3 minute mark for IP address location)