Privacy and Security Notices

Thank you for visiting the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (“NREL”) website. We are committed to protecting the privacy of our visitors.

We collect no personally identifiable information about you when you visit NREL.gov, or any other sites we maintain, unless you choose to provide that information to us.

NREL is managed and operated by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC (“Alliance”), under Prime Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308 with the U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”).

Purpose

These notices outline the type of information collected by NREL when you visit NREL.gov, how NREL may use that information, whether it is disclosed to anyone, the choices you have to control the information shared, and the security measures in place to protect that information.

Cookies

We use technology to track new and returning visitors' actions while on the website. These files are commonly referred to as “cookies.” Cookies are small files that web servers place on a user’s hard drive. Our cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information, and their use helps us identify trends and resolve common problems on our site. If you are concerned about the potential use of the information gathered from your computer by cookies, you can change your browser settings to block cookies.

We will retain the data only as long as required by law or specific program needs as specified by the National Archives and Records Administration's General Records Schedule, as applicable.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

If you only browse our website, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store information such as the following when you visit (“Summary Statistics”):

Your Internet Protocol (IP) address
The date and time you access our site
The pages you visit
The internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site, if applicable
The browser name and version you are using.

We use these Summary Statistics to make our site more useful to visitors, determine the site's technical design specifications, and identify system performance or problem areas. We do not track or record information about individuals and their visits.

Information You Voluntarily Provide

We do not collect personally identifiable information unless you choose to provide it to us. If you provide us with personally identifiable information—for example, by sending an email or filling out a form and submitting it through our website—we use that personally identifiable information to respond to your message and provide you with the information and services that you request. All uses of that personally identifiable information will be described on the web page containing the form.

Submitting voluntary information constitutes your consent to the use of the personally identifiable information for the stated purpose.

How Information Is Used

The information we collect is used for a variety of purposes (for example, to register you for a conference, to respond to requests for information, and for volunteering). We make every effort to disclose clearly how information is used at the point where it is collected so you can determine whether you wish to provide the information.

Retention of Information

We destroy the information we collect when the purpose for which it was provided has been fulfilled unless we are required to keep it longer by statute or official policy. Electronically submitted information is maintained and destroyed according to the principles of the Federal Records Act and the regulations and records schedules approved by the National Archives and Records Administration. In some cases, information submitted to us may become an agency record and therefore might be subject to a Freedom of Information Act request.

Interaction With Children

This website may offer some educational content to children under 13. No personally identifiable information is collected unless voluntarily submitted as a request for information or services. The information supplied is used to respond to the user inquiries or to provide services requested by the user.

Links to Other Websites

NREL may link to websites created and maintained by other public or private organizations as a service to our users. When you follow a link to an external site, you are leaving NREL.gov and are no longer subject to our privacy and security notices. NREL, Alliance, and the DOE do not endorse any external site, the views they express, or guarantee the security, accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of information contained in an externally linked site.

Information Protection

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information or otherwise cause damage. If such monitoring reveals evidence of possible abuse or criminal activity, such evidence may be provided to appropriate law enforcement officials. Unauthorized attempts to upload or change information on this server are strictly prohibited in accordance with applicable laws.