Optimised RetroFit Programme: why we need your data

Laws have been made to help reduce global warming and slow down climate change. The Environment (Wales) Act 2016 requires the Welsh Government to play its part in reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses in the UK to zero by 2050. This target is known as “net zero”.

People’s homes are one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gases, so the government needs to create plans to reduce these greenhouse gas emissions from everyone’s homes - we refer to ‘emissions’ throughout this document, but what we’re really talking about is the energy efficiency of your home, the amount of gas and electricity used and the amount of heat that leaks out of your home.

Your personal data is being collected by the Welsh Government to help create plans to ensure that Wales is working towards net zero by 2050. The Welsh Government is working with partners such as landlords (including your landlord) to understand how best to update homes to make them more energy efficient – the project is known as the Optimised RetroFit Programme.

This document includes everything you need to know about how energy information is collected through the hub in your home. This hub monitors your home’s energy usage to understand its energy efficiency, including how much energy you are using. This information will only be used to:

• inform and monitor the Optimised Retrofit Programme
• monitor the performance of the improvements made to your home to see the difference they are making
• help the Welsh Government develop policies that move Wales towards meeting our Net Zero Targets.

If you have any questions or concerns about anything in this document, you can contact the Welsh Government via OptimisedRetroFitProgramme@gov.wales and we will be happy to discuss the issue with you.

Please note this document may need to be changed from time to time but, the latest version of the document is available on the Welsh Government’s ORP web-page.

Whilst your name and address will be collected, before it is transferred to the Welsh Government it will be given a ‘unique identifier’ to anonymise it. This means your name and contact details will not be visible to the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government will still be data controller for your collected personal data and will process it in line with our public task and the official authority vested in us. Your landlord will also have access to your personal data as they will be the ones who provide this data to the Welsh Government.

A lot of the information collected relates to the property itself - what sort of property it is, where it is, etc. Welsh Government use the data collected through the equipment and systems installed in your home to monitor energy usage. This shows whether the equipment and systems reduce emissions and allows the Welsh Government to decide whether the systems can be installed in other homes.

The data we collect about your home and energy use (heating, hot water etc. and what rooms it is used in) will be combined with data from other homes to undertake research (for example, to understand how much energy is used in a group of homes on one street). This information will be used:

• to help the Welsh Government understand the effect homes have on emissions in Wales and make decisions about the future of homes in Wales
• to help Welsh Government and its partners, like landlords, to decide what tools / equipment can be put into homes to reduce emissions and allow partners to report on this to the Welsh Government
• for research purposes to understand the emissions from homes in different areas of Wales.

Monitoring

Via the Optimised Retrofit Programme, the Welsh Government is helping landlords fund improvement to homes in Wales. These improvements are helping to reduce the carbon footprint of homes by, for example:

• installing insulation
• upgrading the doors and windows
• fitting new technology like solar electricity panels or heat pumps.

Part of the support provided by Welsh Government requires your landlord to install Sensors to monitor the performance of the improvements that are made. This will enable Welsh Government to collect data that shows how improvements made to homes work in real time rather than relying on predicted improvements. This data will help decide on future policy in terms of retrofitting homes across Wales.

Organisations such as the National Grid, OFGEM, SPEN and other companies who operate in energy for the purposes of complying with legal and regulatory requirements and sharing information to allow these organisations to research how the energy efficient measures in your home work.

There are other organisations helping to deliver the project who will be processing data, these include your landlord, organisations working on behalf of your landlord (eg the various brands of Sensors being procured by landlords that meet ORP Sensors specification), and TrustMark who are working with the Welsh Government in connection with the project. 

After receiving it, the Welsh Government and any partners in the project will keep your personal data for 5 years after which it will be deleted.

You have rights under data protection laws, including, the right to:

• receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• require the data controllers mentioned above to correct any mistakes in your personal data
• in certain circumstances object to how your data is processed
• in certain circumstances request that your data is ‘erased’.

If you have any questions or concerns about anything in this document, you can contact us at the Welsh Government via OptimisedRetroFitProgramme@gov.wales and we will be happy to discuss the issue with you.

For further information about the information which the Welsh Government holds and its use, or if you wish to exercise your rights under the UK GDPR, please see contact details below:

Data Protection Officer
Welsh Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Email: DataProtectionOfficer@gov.wales 

If you are not happy with how your personal data is being processed, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office who regulates data protection in the UK – but please contact us first as we will always try to resolve any issues or concerns. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate)