Privacy Policy

Go Solar DMV helps homeowners, businesses and farms in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. go solar. This policy covers gosolardmv.com and the information we handle when you work with us. When we say "we," "us" or "our," we mean Go Solar DMV.

Other websites we link to, such as Bayou Energy and Google, have their own privacy policies.

Using our website is also covered by our Terms of Service.

Information you give us

• Contact details: your name, email address and phone number.
• Your property: your street address or ZIP code, the type of property, and your electric utility. We save your request once you give us a street address, an email, a phone number or your name - a ZIP code on its own is not saved.
• Your energy use: the monthly electric bill you enter, or your bills from your utility if you choose to connect your account.
• Your project preferences: for example, when you'd like to install and whether you want battery backup.
• What you write to us: questions you type into our solar assistant, and emails you send us.
• Vehicle details: if you use our RV and van tools - for example, a VIN or body style, and the state you're in.
• Community solar requests: if you ask about community solar - as a renter, a homeowner, an HOA's board member or manager, or someone with a site that could host a project - your contact details, where you live or where the site is, whether you rent or own, your HOA's name, and anything you tell us about your community or site.
• Partner information: if you work with us as an installer or sales partner - your account and business details, and the job-site photos you upload.

Information collected when you use our site

• Device and usage information: the pages you visit, what you click, the site or ad that brought you here, your browser and device type, and your IP address.
• Your location: we don't look up where you are - not from your IP address and not from your device. We only know where a property is when you type its address or ZIP code. (Partners using the map in our portal can choose to show their own position on it; it stays on their device.)
• Quote form progress: which steps of our quote form you reach, and what kind of answer you gave at each - for example a home or a business, an address or a ZIP code, and whether you typed your bill or connected your utility - never the answers themselves. We use it to make the form easier to use. Visits by our own team and partners, while signed in, are not counted.
• Error reports: technical details when something on a page doesn't work.

Information from other sources

• Your utility, through Bayou Energy: only if you choose to connect your utility account.
• Property and mapping services: details about your property, such as its roof, sun exposure and building size, from Google and public property records. We use a building's size on its public record to estimate its electricity use when no bill has been given.
• Whether a home is rented: when you enter a street address on our quote form, we check whether Maryland's public property record - or an earlier community solar request of ours for that same home - shows it as rented, so a renter can be shown community solar. The answer isn't saved.
• Public property records: our team can look up the public record for homes in the areas we serve - the address, the type of home, whether the owner lives there (a yes or no from the state's own record) and when it last sold - to plan which homes to visit. That list doesn't include owners' names and isn't saved. Looking up a single property shows our team its owner of record, as the state's public record does.

• To prepare your estimate and quote, and design your solar system.
• To contact you about your quote and your project by email or phone. After you ask for a quote we email you once to confirm it. If a consultant is assigned to you, we can send you their name, phone and email. When your consultant first calls you, we may email you once to say who is calling and how to call them back.
• To connect you with the installer partner who will do the work, and to manage your project.
• To answer your questions, including through our solar assistant.
• To tell you about community solar if you ask - and, if you live in an HOA or condo community, to connect your request with your community's.
• To run, protect and improve our website - for example, seeing which pages people find useful and where our quote form is confusing.
• To follow the law and protect our rights and the rights of others.

Our quote form lets you connect your electric utility account instead of typing in your bill. It's optional - you can always enter your average bill instead. If you connect:

• You sign in through Bayou Energy: Bayou is a company that retrieves utility bills with a customer's permission. Your utility username and password go to Bayou, not to us. We never see or store them.
• We retrieve your bills one time: we get up to your last 12 months of bills once, when you connect. We don't pull new bills after that.
• We use them to size your system: from your bills we work out your typical monthly bill, and we save that amount - and how many bills it was based on - with your quote.
• We keep copies your design needs: for a home, we keep a copy of your most recent electric bill; for a business or farm, your last 12 bills. They are stored privately and shown only to our team and the partner working on your project.
• Bayou has its own privacy policy: Bayou handles your sign-in and bill information under Bayou's privacy policy. Bayou may keep your utility connection active on its side. If you'd like it removed, ask us and we'll ask Bayou to delete it, or contact Bayou directly at hello@bayou.energy.

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only in these situations:

• The partner working on your project: the Go Solar DMV installer or sales partner assigned to your project sees your contact, property and energy details so they can prepare your design and quote and install your system.
• Our community solar partner: if you ask to subscribe to community solar, we may pass your contact details, service address and utility to the company that runs the community solar project you would join, so they can enroll you.
• Our proposal design site: for some projects, a design engineer builds your proposal on proposals.gosolardmv.com. We send it your name, contact details, address and energy use, and a picture of your roof, so it doesn't have to be typed again.
• Companies that provide services to us: they handle information on our behalf so we can run our website and business (listed below).
• Legal and safety reasons: when the law requires it, or to protect rights and safety - for example, to respond to a valid legal request or to prevent fraud.
• If our business changes hands: if Go Solar DMV is part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, personal information may be transferred as part of that deal.

Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. We, and the services we use, rely on cookies and similar browser storage:

• To make the site work: for example, keeping partners signed in to our portal, and remembering your progress - and how you found us - while you fill out the quote form.
• To remember things on your device: like whether you've already requested a quote, so we don't ask twice.
• To understand how our site is used: Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager set cookies that help us see how visitors find and use our site, including visits from our ads. Vercel Web Analytics counts page visits without cookies.

Your choices

• You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some parts of the site may not work as well.
• You can opt out of Google Analytics with Google's opt-out browser add-on.
• You can read how Google uses information from sites that use its services.
• Our site doesn't currently respond to "Do Not Track" browser signals.

We keep personal information for as long as we need it for the reasons in this policy - to prepare your quote, carry out your project and support your system afterward - and for as long as the law requires us to keep records. When we no longer need it, we delete it or remove the details that identify you. You can ask us to delete your information sooner.

The roof pictures we make from Google's satellite data - the sun map on our quote form, and the sun and aerial pictures our team uses for proposals - are kept on our servers for up to 30 days and then deleted. Quote-form answers that never included a name, email, phone number or street address are not saved.

Depending on where you live - including under Virginia's and Maryland's consumer privacy laws - you may have the right to:

• Access: ask whether we have personal information about you, and get a copy of it.
• Correct: fix information about you that's inaccurate.
• Delete: ask us to delete your personal information.
• Take it with you: get a copy of your information in a format you can use elsewhere.
• Opt out: of targeted advertising, the sale of your personal information, and profiling used for decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you. We don't sell personal information.

We honor these requests from all our customers, wherever they live.

How to make a request

Email us at our email address (loading…) and tell us what you'd like us to do. We'll check that the request comes from you, usually by confirming the email address or phone number we have on file. You can also have someone you authorize make a request for you.

We'll respond within 45 days. If we need more time, we'll tell you why, and we may take up to 45 more days. Requests are free, and we won't treat you differently for using your rights.

If we say no

We'll explain why. You can appeal by replying to our answer and asking us to reconsider. We'll respond to your appeal within 60 days. If you still disagree, you can contact your state's attorney general:

• Virginia: Office of the Attorney General - file a complaint
• Maryland: Office of the Attorney General - Consumer Protection Division

Hearing from us

If you'd like us to stop contacting you, reply to any email from us or get in touch using the details below.

• Our website uses encrypted (HTTPS) connections.
• Customer information in our systems, including copies of your utility bills, is available only to signed-in Go Solar DMV staff and the partner assigned to your project.
• Utility sign-ins happen on Bayou's secure form, and Bayou encrypts the sign-in details it stores.

No way of storing or sending information online is completely secure, so we can't promise absolute security. If a security incident affects your information, we'll notify you as the law requires.

Our site is for adults making decisions about a home or business. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you think a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we'll change the "Last updated" date at the top. If a change is significant, we'll also post a notice on our site.

For questions, requests or concerns about your privacy, contact Go Solar DMV: