Privacy Policy

Who we are

The Solar Payback (the "site") is published by a registered Canadian business that operates independent consumer calculators. Where this policy refers to "we" or "us", it means that business as the entity responsible for the site. For any privacy question or request, contact hello@thesolarpayback.com.

The calculator collects nothing about you

Every figure you enter — your state, system size, power price, daytime usage, feed-in rate, and any battery option — is processed locally in your own browser. None of it is transmitted to us or to any third party. We do not have a server that receives your inputs, we do not store your results, and there is no account, login or email gate. If your browser remembers a result between visits, that is stored on your own device only.

Automated computation transparency

The Solar Payback is a computational tool. It applies a published formula to the figures you type and returns an estimate. It uses automated processing to produce that estimate, but it does not make any decision about you: it does not assess, profile, rank, approve or reject you, and it produces no outcome that affects your legal rights or your access to any product or service. The methodology — the formula and every constant — is fully published on our Methodology page so you can see exactly how the number is produced. We include this statement in line with Australian Privacy Act transparency expectations for automated processing.

Cookies and consent

The Solar Payback uses two kinds of storage:

• Strictly necessary / functional — a small entry in your browser's local storage that remembers your cookie choice (and, optionally, your last result). This is not used for advertising or tracking and is required for the site to work as you expect.
• Advertising and analytics — these load only after you actively choose "Accept all" on the consent banner. By default they are switched off. If you choose "Reject all", or simply ignore the banner, no advertising or analytics cookies are set and no third-party advertising or analytics tags are loaded.

"Reject all" is offered with equal prominence to "Accept all"; there are no pre-ticked boxes and no nag-wall. You can change your mind at any time by clearing this site's storage in your browser, which brings the banner back.

Note: at present no advertising is served on The Solar Payback and no advertising tag is loaded at all. When display advertising is introduced, it will be governed by the consent mechanism described here and this policy will be updated accordingly.

Australian visitors — our Privacy Act posture

The Solar Payback is built for Australian households and we follow the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) as a matter of policy. In practice:

• We collect no personal information through the calculator itself.
• Advertising and analytics cookies are opt-in (active consent), reflecting the direction of the Privacy Act reforms — we do not rely on a passive "by using this site you agree" notice for those cookies.
• We carry the automated-computation transparency statement above, ahead of the 10 December 2026 commencement of the automated-decision-making transparency requirement, even though our tool makes no decision about you.
• You can ask us what (if any) information we hold and request access or correction — see "Your rights" below.

Visitors from the EU/EEA and the UK

The Solar Payback targets Australia, but if you visit from the EU, the EEA or the UK, the same consent-first approach applies and is intended to meet GDPR/UK-GDPR expectations: no advertising or analytics cookies, and no non-essential third-party tags, load until you give explicit consent through the consent banner (a certified Consent Management Platform and Google Consent Mode v2 are wired into the banner for these visitors when advertising is enabled). The lawful basis for any advertising/analytics processing is your consent, which you may withhold or withdraw with no loss of access to the calculator.

Third parties and data processors

We do not sell your personal information. When you consent to advertising/analytics, the relevant third party acts as a data processor for that purpose:

• Google — when (and only when) you accept advertising/analytics cookies, Google may act as a processor for serving advertising (Google AdSense) and/or measurement, and may set cookies and process technical data such as your IP address and device/browser information under its own privacy terms. If you reject, Google's advertising/analytics tags are not loaded; where non-personalised advertising is served, it is served without advertising/identification cookies.
• Hosting — our web host processes standard server logs (such as IP address and requested URL) to deliver the page and for security, as any web server does.

You can review and control Google's use of advertising data via Google's Ads Settings and learn more at how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

Your rights and how to contact us

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete or restrict the processing of your personal information, to withdraw consent, and to complain to a regulator. Because the calculator collects no personal information, in most cases we will simply have nothing about you to access or delete — but you are welcome to ask.

To make a request or ask a question, email our data contact: hello@thesolarpayback.com. We monitor this inbox at least once every business day and aim to respond promptly. If you are in Australia and are not satisfied with our response, you may contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC).

Data breaches

Because we do not collect personal information through the calculator, the risk of a personal-data breach from your use of the tool is minimal. Should an eligible data breach ever occur in a system we control, we will assess and, where required, notify affected individuals and the relevant regulator without undue delay, consistent with applicable breach-notification obligations.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when our practices change — for example, when advertising is introduced — and we will move the "Last updated" date when we do. Material changes will be reflected on this page rather than communicated individually, since we hold no contact details for visitors.

This policy is provided for transparency and is not legal advice. See About for who runs The Solar Payback.