Privacy Policy

Personal information, as it used in this Privacy Policy, is information that can be associated with a specific person and can be used to uniquely identify or contact a person. It is not necessary for you to provide NRGTree with personal information in order to read content that is publicly available at the Site. You must register at the Site and create an account (that is, you must become a “Registered User”), however, if you wish to use certain resources and services that are available at the Site whose use is limited to Registered Users (including, but not limited to, the NRGTree Marketplace, calculators, estimators, dashboards, self-evaluation guides (wizards), maps, summaries, digests, member forums, ratings, and reviews, etc.). If you choose to become a Registered User in order to avail yourself of these resources and services, you will be asked to provide NRGTree with certain personal information that is necessary to complete your registration. That personal information may include your name, username, password, and your email address. You may also be asked to provide personal information if and when you contact NRGTree by telephone or by mail, depending on your reason for contacting us. Your personal information may be shared with NRGTree’s Channel Partners (as defined below), and with NRGTree’s network of product manufacturers, independent installers and contractors, lenders and other financial institutions (“Third-Party Vendors”) for the purpose of providing you with price quotations for energy systems and marketing other products and services.

In addition to reading content that is publicly available at the Site, Visitors to the Site who are not Registered Users (“Unregistered Users”; and when “Unregistered Users” and “Registered Users” are referred to collectively, “Users”) may also obtain an estimate of the financial savings they may achieve by installing a photovoltaic (“PV”) system (an “Instant Estimate”). In order to obtain an Instant Estimate, Unregistered Users must indicate their ZIP code. If you are an Unregistered User and obtain an Instant Estimate for your property, you thus provide NRGTree with your ZIP Code. The ZIP code information you provide as an Unregistered User when you request an Instant Estimate will be shared with third parties in order to render your Instant Estimate, and to deliver or promote the resources, services, programs, and functionality that are hosted at the Site. Your address information may also be shared with (i) Channel Partners (as defined below) and third parties to market related products and services, (ii) with third parties to improve the user experience of the Site, and (iii) with academic and research institutions, the sponsors of grant programs, and with other public and privately owned entities that wish to learn more about the various markets that are served by NRGTree. NRGTree will deliver the address information relating to your property to Third-Party Vendors if you (i) specifically request or instruct NRGTree in writing to deliver your address information to one or more Third Party Vendors, or (ii) you become a Registered User, and you use the NRGTree Marketplace or some other means available at the Site to yourself make your address information available to one or more Third Party Vendors.

NRGTree may not record the name or email address of an Unregistered User at the Site unless such Unregistered User subscribes to receive information via electronic mail, or such Unregistered User chooses to become a Registered User and provides their name and email address (and their username and password) to NRGTree.

Certain resources at the Site, if you choose to use them, may require you to provide information concerning the physical attributes of your property, including (in addition to its street address, city or town, and ZIP Code) what type of building it is (residential, commercial, or industrial) the energy systems that are used to heat and cool it, the fuels that those energy systems consume (oil, gas, propane, etc.), the quantities of those fuels that are consumed annually, the amount of electricity you use, and so on. Information regarding the physical attributes of your property, including building type, the energy systems on your property, and the kind and quantity of the fuel they consume, etc., while detailed and specific, cannot be used to uniquely identify or contact you, and does not, by itself, qualify as personal information. If you wish to utilize these Site resources, however, you may first be required to enroll as a Registered User and provide NRGTree with certain personal information, as described in Section I, above, under the caption “Personal Information.” NRGTree will disclose this information regarding the physical attributes of your property, including building type, your energy systems, and the kind and quantity of the fuels those systems consume, etc. to Channel Partners and Third Party Vendors to provide you with price quotations for energy systems and to market other products and services. NRGTree may also share aggregated information regarding the physical attributes of Users’ properties and their energy systems with academic and research institutions, the sponsors of grant programs, and with other public and privately owned entities that wish to learn more about the various markets that are served by NRGTree.

NRGTree may require you to provide us with the identifying numbers of your utility accounts, or any other identifying numbers that may be associated with them, such as a meter number, and you may, solely at your own discretion, choose to provide NRGTree with copies of your utility bills for analysis, and any identifying numbers, including account and meter numbers, may be included as part of the information included on such bills. NRGTree will disclose the identifying numbers associated with your accounts, including account and meter numbers, with Channel Partners and Third-Party Vendors for the purpose of providing you with price quotations for energy systems and marketing other products and services.

If you decide to purchase, lease, or otherwise finance a renewable or clean energy system (such as a PV system) for your home or business, which may include entering into an agreement to purchase the energy produced by such a system (a “Power Purchase Agreement,” or “PPA”), and wish to be contacted by one or more Third-Party Vendors offering their services and products via the NRGTree Marketplace, you may be required to provide them with your name, your address and your telephone number, or other contact information so that they may communicate with you. This personal information will be shared with Third-Party Vendors if (i) you specifically request or instruct NRGTree in writing to deliver the information to one or more Third Party Vendors, or (ii) you become a Registered User, and you yourself use the NRGTree Marketplace or some other means available at the Site, to make your address and your telephone number, or other contact information, available to such Third-Party Vendors. Note that the installers and other Third-Party Vendors who offer their services and products via the NRGTree Marketplace are independent contractors: they are not owned or controlled by NRGTree, nor are they employed by NRGTree. We encourage you to contact the Third-Party Vendors who offer their services and products via the NRGTree Marketplace directly if you wish to learn more about their respective privacy policies and practices, and to find out how they may use your personal information, how they store it and the steps they take to protect it, the circumstances under which they may disclose or transfer it, and the choices you have regarding the manner in which they maintain it.

In addition to personal information that is disclosed to Third-Party Vendors (i) by NRGTree in response to your written request for NRGTree to make such disclosure, or (ii) by you if you become a Registered User, and you use the NRGTree Marketplace or some other means available at the Site to yourself make your personal information available to Third Party Vendors, your personal information may also be shared with third parties for marketing, or other commercial purposes that are related to the delivery and promotion of the resources, services, programs, and functionality that are hosted at the Site.

From time to time NRGTree enters into partnerships with for-profit companies and firms, non-profit organizations, municipalities and other governmental entities, and employers (collectively “Channel Partners”), that wish to offer their customers, clients, members, constituents, or employees the resources and services provided at the Site. Our Channel Partners host hyperlinks on certain of their own web pages that permit their customers, clients, members, constituents, or employees to access web pages at the Site that have been customized for their use. Channel Partners may also publish the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for these customized Site web pages in printed promotional materials and in emails and social medial posts they may deliver or transmit to you. Pursuant to our agreements with these Channel Partners, NRGTree may share with them the personal information you provide when you become a Registered User at the Site. If you are affiliated with one of NRGTree’s Channel Partners, and access a page at the Site customized for your use via a link or URL that has been provided by that Channel Partner, we encourage you to contact that Channel Partner directly to learn more about their privacy policies and practices, and to find out how they may use the personal information we share with them, how they store it and the steps they take to protect it, the circumstances under which they may disclose or transfer it, and the choices you have regarding the manner in which they maintain the information that you provide to us and that we may be required to share with them. NRGTree employs payment intermediary services such as Authorize.net™ to receive payment from its Third Party Vendors, and does not request or store any of your financial information, such as your bank routing or account numbers, or your debit or credit card account numbers.

NRGTree collects certain non-personal information from you automatically when you access the Site. This non-personal information includes your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address — a numeric label that your Internet service provider assigns to your computer each time you connect to the Internet. Your IP address does not contain any personal information (such as your name, your mailing address, or your email address). Your IP address facilitates communication between your computer and the Site, and helps us to administer the Site.

Additional non-personal information is collected from you through the use of “cookies.” A cookie is an alphanumeric file that is delivered by a web site to your computer, and is stored by your web browser. Cookies can be used to verify the identity of a source of information, to store web site preferences, to store certain items of information so that they can be accessed later on (“shopping cart” contents, for example), or for any other purpose that depends on retrieving stored data. We use cookies to identify your computer whenever you access the Site. This facilitates and enhances your use of the content, resources and services provided to you at the Site. We also use cookies to gather information about the number of visitors to the Site, how frequently they visit, and the hosted pages those visitors access. This information helps us to improve the appearance and content of the Site, and improve the functionality of Site resources. These cookies do not gather information that can be used to uniquely identify or contact you.

Cookies may remain on your hard drive after you leave the Site. You may modify the settings of your web browser to prevent cookies from being installed on your computer. If you decline to have your web browser accept cookies, however, you may not be able to access or utilize certain resources or services that are available at the Site.

NRGTree may also use other technology that is standard to the Internet, such as pixel tags, web beacons, and other similar technologies, to track visitors to the Site. These technologies also help us to gather information about the number of visitors to the Site, whether and how those visitors arrived at the Site as the result of a web search, the pages those visitors accessed, etc. This information also helps us to improve the appearance and content of the Site, and enhances the functionality of Site resources.

NRGTree uses Google Analytics and similar web analytics services. Google Analytics is used to track Unregistered Users on the Site, to record multiple visits by Unregistered Users to the Site, and to record all the pages that Unregistered Users visit at the Site. If and when an Unregistered User becomes a Registered User, all of his or her previous Unregistered User visits and activity on the Site will be associated with their Registered User identities. Google Analytics tracks Registered Users visits to the Site whenever they return.

NRGTree will not (and will not allow any third party to) use Google Analytics to track, collect or upload any data that personally identifies an individual (such as a name, address, or billing information), or other data that can reasonably be linked to such information by Google.

NRGTree uses all features of Google Analytics for Display Advertisers. That includes obtaining specific visitor cookie data, such as the source, medium, and keyword used to visit the Site. Google Analytics does not store any visitor-specific data, and NRGTree will not use specific data regarding Users in any way related to Google Analytics, Google Adwords, and Remarketing.

NRGTree uses remarketing with Google Adwords and analytics to display content-specific advertisements to Users that have previously visited the Site when those visitors go to other websites that have Google Display Network implemented.

NRGTree and other third-party vendors, including Google, use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) together to inform, optimize, and serve ads based on Users’ past visits to the Site.

NRGTree will not facilitate the merging of personally identifiable information with non-personally identifiable information that is collected through any Google advertising product or feature unless you have specifically and affirmatively provided NRGTree with your consent to that merger of personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable information.

Users can opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customize Google Display Network ads using Google’s Ads Settings.

Users can also opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising, to prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics, by going to the Google Analytics opt-out page.

Whenever your non-personal information is used or is stored together with the your personal information, it will be treated as personal information.

As a Registered User of the Site you will be able to use the resources and services that are available at the Site (including, but not limited to, the NRGTree Marketplace, calculators, estimators, dashboards, self-evaluation guides (wizards), maps, summaries, digests, member forums, ratings, reviews, case studies, etc.). The information that you provide when you become a Register User will be used to identify you as the source of content that you post to the Site, whether in a forum of blog, or any other area of the Site that is accessible to Registered Users.

If you are a Registered User, or are an Unregistered User who has subscribed to receive information via electronic mail, NRGTree may also use your personal information to send you notices regarding changes to our Terms of Use, this Privacy Policy, and other policies relating to the Site, or to promote the resources, services, programs, and functionality that are hosted at the Site, or that are offered by our Channel Partners, our affiliates, or their partners.

If you are a Registered User and own a renewable or clean energy system, we encourage you to create a profile of your system at the Site (a “Case Study”). The Case Studies that you post are intended to provide other NRGTree Users who are currently considering the acquisition of a renewable or clean energy system with information to aid their choices and decision-making.

If you use the NRGTree Marketplace to solicit proposals from independent installers for the installation and/or financing of an energy system for your home or business or any other residential or commercial property, NRGTree will record the equipment offerings and price quotations you receive in response to your solicitation. NRGTree uses this non-personal information to aggregate data regarding the prices our Users were quoted or paid for energy systems in specific geographic locations, the energy equipment that our Users were quoted or selected, and the manner in which our Users financed or considered financing their energy systems (i.e. cash purchase, lease, PPA, or loan). NRGTree may also use solar photovoltaic (PV) pricing data to specify the various prices offered in a geographical location for PV systems on a $/WDC basis. Any $/WDC price that a User receives for a PV system may be reported to other Users, but that $/WDC price, if reported to other Users, will be reported anonymously, and will only be associated with your ZIP Code and will not be associated with your name, or your address, or any other personally identifiable information. Unless you yourself opt to report the amount you paid for your energy system, and/or the equipment choices you selected, and/or the financing option you agreed upon, in a Case Study that you create on the Site, and you yourself publish your name and/or your address in such Case Study, NRGTree will not publish non-personal information concerning your energy system purchases in connection with your name or your address, whether on the Site or elsewhere. NRGTree may, however, share the price you paid for your energy system, and/or the equipment choices you selected, and/or the financing option you agreed upon, in connection with your name and address, with Channel Partners, affiliates, and Third-Party Vendors. If you yourself have given a license or some other form of permission to a third-party, including a Third-Party Vendor (e.g. an energy system installer, manufacturer, or financier), to publish information regarding the amount you paid for your energy system, and/or the equipment choices you selected, and/or the manner in which you financed your distributed energy system, that third-party may also have the right to publish such information, whether on the Site or elsewhere. NRGTree may share aggregated, non-personally identifiable information regarding the prices that our Users paid for energy systems, and the energy equipment that our Users selected, and the manner in which our Users financed their energy systems, with academic and research institutions, the sponsors of grant programs, and with other public and privately owned entities that wish to learn more about the various markets that are served by NRGTree.

As stated in Section I above, captioned “Personal Information,” your personal information may be shared with NRGTree’s Channel Partners and Third-Party Vendors for the purpose of providing you with price quotations for energy systems and marketing other products and services.

From time to time NRGTree may create, purchase or sell business subsidiaries. NRGTree may disclose your personal information to any subsidiary that it creates or purchases. In addition, personal information constitutes a business asset that is transferrable in any transaction involving the sale of NRGTree or any of its business subsidiaries. Whether NRGTree engages in any such transaction, or creates, acquires, or sells a business subsidiary, any personal information that is shared or sold will remain subject to the promises made in the Privacy Policy then current, unless you consent otherwise in writing.

NRGTree may make other disclosures of your personal information to third parties if required to do so by law, to enforce our Terms of Use, to offer you other relevant products or services, or upon your written request. The most current version of our Terms of Use can be reviewed by clicking on the "Terms of Use" link located at the bottom of each page on the Site.

The Site includes User forums and blogs where you can post information and comments, and post and answer questions, and you may also choose to create a profile of your system in a Case Study. When you post content in a forum or to a blog, or in a Case Study, any personal information that you include in your post is visible to and shared with anyone visiting the Site, and will be disclosed to him or her. You are solely responsible for any personal information that you choose to post in a forum, blog, or Case Study that is visible to other Users. Please be mindful of the information that you post in forums, blogs, or in a Case Study: specifically, whether it constitutes personal information, and whether you wish to publish it in a forum, blog, or in a Case Study that is hosted on the Site.

For Connecticut residents only. In fulfillment of its Channel Partnership with the Connecticut Green Bank (“CGB”) NRGTree is required to provide CGB with certain information, whether or not such Connecticut Users access web pages at the Site that have been customized for CGB’s use, or they access the Site by using a CGB-provided URL to access the Site. Such information includes: (i) the location of any Connecticut Unregistered User, including the ZIP code of any Connecticut Unregistered User who has processed an Instant Estimate; (ii) the name and address of each Connecticut resident who is a Registered User; and (iii) if you are a Registered User who has purchased a PV system via the NRGTree Marketplace, information regarding the cost of your system, the PV system equipment you selected, and the manner in which you financed your PV system.

1. By logging in and clicking on the link captioned “My Account”;
2. By email sent to support@nrgtree.com;
3. By mail sent to NRGTree at 128 Warren Street, Lowell, MA 01852; or
4. By telephoning 1 (877) 674-4240

NRGTree has developed and implemented a comprehensive written information security program that contains administrative, technical, and physical safeguards that are intended to protect Users’ private information from disclosure in compliance with regulations issued by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts entitled “Standards For The Protection of Personal Information Of Residents Of The Commonwealth” (201 Code Mass. Regs. 17.00) (the “Security Program”). One or more NRGTree employees have been designated to maintain the Security Program. Among other things, the Security Program has been implemented to identify and assess reasonably foreseeable internal and external risks to the security, confidentiality, and/or integrity of any electronic, paper or other record that contains “Personal Information” as defined in 201 Code Mass. Regs. 17.02. The Security Program also represents an ongoing effort to evaluate and improve, where necessary, the effectiveness of the current safeguards for limiting such risks, and provides for the development of security policies for employees to follow when storing, accessing and transporting records that contain personal information. NRGTree reviews the scope of the measures contained in the Security Program at least annually, and whenever there is a material change in business practices that may reasonably implicate the security or integrity of records containing personal information.

To make sure your personal information is secure, we communicate our privacy and security guidelines to all NRGTree employees and strictly enforce privacy safeguards within the company.

If you are under 18, you may use the Site only with the involvement of a parent or guardian. If you become aware that your child has provided NRGTree with personal information without your consent, please contact us at support@nrgtree.com. NRGTree does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If NRGTree becomes aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we take steps to remove such information and terminate the child's account.

The Site may contain links to third-party websites promoting products, and services. Information collected by such third parties at websites hosted by them, including personal information, is governed by and subject to their own privacy practices, and not by this Privacy Policy. You are encouraged to learn about the privacy practices of the third parties that host such sites.

We encourage you to contact us if you have any questions or concerns about the privacy or security of your information. You may submit your questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, or any other privacy matter, via email sent to support@nrgtree.com.