Privacy policy

In short: you can use Global Grid without giving any personal details. If you make a free account or subscribe to Pro, Global Grid keeps your email address, the settings you choose and, for Pro, the few subscription details listed below. Payments are handled by Stripe, so Global Grid never sees your card. There are no adverts and no tracking cookies.

Last updated 26 October 2026.

Who is responsible

This policy covers globalgrid.uk. The site is run by Adam Cowin, trading as Global Grid, 95 Salwarpe Road, Bromsgrove, B60 3HS, United Kingdom, who is responsible for your data (the "data controller" under UK data protection law). To ask about your data or use any of your rights, email GlobalGrid365@gmail.com. Please do not send card details or other sensitive information by email. Before giving out or changing anything about an account, Global Grid may ask you to confirm that the account is yours, for example by replying from its email address.

Visiting the site

Running the site. The site is hosted by Cloudflare. Like every website, when you visit, your browser sends technical details such as your IP address, browser type and the page you asked for. Cloudflare uses these to deliver the pages and to protect the site from attacks, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. Global Grid does not keep its own record of them.

Counting visits (analytics). The site uses Cloudflare Web Analytics to count how many people visit and which pages they look at. It records things like the page, the website you came from, your country, and your browser and device type. Cloudflare says it does not use cookies or your browser's storage for this and does not follow you across other websites. The owner sees only totals, never individual visitors.

The site's own visit totals. When a page opens, it sends the site one small message saying which page it is and which website linked to it, if any. The site adds one to that day's totals for the page, for the website that linked to it (its name only, such as google.com) and for the visitor's country, which Cloudflare works out from the IP address. The IP address itself is never stored: to stop the totals being pumped up, the site holds a scrambled version of it in memory only, made with a key that is never saved, and starts afresh every hour; nothing about it is written down. Only these daily totals are kept, for about 13 months, and they are used for a weekly summary sent to the site's owner. No cookies are used and nothing is stored on your device. If your browser is set to ask websites not to track you (Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track), the page does not send this message at all. No other analytics or tracking tools are used.

On your device. The dashboard remembers the last country you chose, using your browser's local storage, so it opens there next time. If you choose a currency for electricity prices ("Prices in"), it remembers that too. On the News tab it also remembers the countries you follow without an account and which country reports you have opened (free visitors can open 2). So that the dashboard keeps working when a connection drops, it also keeps a copy of the public figures, maps and briefings it has loaded in your browser's storage (the same files every visitor gets, with nothing about you in them), and shows a copy only when a fresh one cannot be loaded, saying so. These stay on your device and are never sent anywhere; if you subscribe, the currency you pay in goes to Stripe with your payment.

Prices in your currency. To show Pro's price in pounds, euros or US dollars, the site uses the country that Cloudflare works out from your IP address. The country is used only to choose the currency and is not stored. If the country is not known, or points to US dollars, the page may also look at your device's time zone setting, on your device only, to suggest pounds or euros; the time zone is not sent anywhere.

Your area's forecast. If you ask for the carbon forecast for your area, only the first half of your postcode (such as SW1A) is used. It is sent to the National Energy System Operator's Carbon Intensity service to get the forecast and is not stored, unless you save it in a daily email alert.

Asking questions (the Ask tab). If you type a question on the Ask tab, Global Grid's own server works out what you are asking, looks up the figures and writes the answer from them. If it cannot tell what a question means, it may pass the question to Cloudflare's AI service (Workers AI), which runs on the Cloudflare servers that already host the site, only to work out which figures you are asking about; it does not write the answer, and under Cloudflare's terms your question is not used to train AI models. Global Grid does not keep your questions or the answers. To apply the daily limit on questions, it keeps a count for up to two days, under your account if you are signed in or, if not, under a version of your IP address scrambled with a secret key, and it keeps the number of questions answered each day in total. Please do not type personal details into the Ask tab.

If you make an account

Your account. Global Grid keeps your email address, the alerts and watchlist you set up, whether alert emails are switched on, and the names of any API keys you make. There are no passwords: you sign in with a one-time link sent to your email. Sign-in links, sessions and API keys are stored only in a scrambled form that cannot be turned back into the original.

Cookies for signing in. When you sign in, the site sets two cookies: one keeps you signed in for up to 30 days (it cannot be read by the page's scripts), and one simply tells the page that you are signed in. They are strictly necessary for the account to work, are only set when you sign in, and are never used for tracking or adverts.

Emails. Sign-in links, alerts, payment confirmations and reminders about your subscription are sent through Resend, an email delivery company, which handles your email address and the message on Global Grid's behalf, only to deliver it. Every alert email has a link to stop alert emails, and you can switch them off in your account. Emails about your subscription (confirmations, the reminder before a launch offer ends and renewal reminders) are part of the service and are sent even if alert emails are off.

The weekly briefing (optional). If you ask for it (on the sign-in form, the News tab or in your account), Global Grid emails you its free weekly briefing on Mondays, through Resend. It is off unless you switch it on. Global Grid keeps your choice, when you made it and which issue was last sent to you, so that none is sent twice. Each briefing has a one-click link to stop it, and you can switch it off in your account at any time; alert emails are not affected. The legal basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time. The choice is deleted with your account.

API keys and downloads. If you make an API key (Pro), Global Grid keeps it only in scrambled form, with the name you give it, its last few characters (so you can tell your keys apart), when it was made, when it was last used and how many times it has been used that day, to apply the daily limit. Spreadsheet downloads are counted each day under your account, to apply their daily limit. Global Grid does not keep a list of the requests or downloads themselves.

Stopping misuse. To stop robots sending sign-in emails to other people, the sign-in form uses Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks your browser when you ask for a sign-in link, under Cloudflare's privacy policy. The site also counts sign-in and payment attempts using versions of the email address and IP address scrambled with a secret key, kept for up to a day. These counts are used only to stop misuse, never for adverts or profiles.

If you email Global Grid

If you email GlobalGrid365@gmail.com, Global Grid uses your email address and whatever you write only to reply and to deal with any follow-up, such as a refund. Emails are kept only as long as needed for that, for the business's records and for any legal claim. The email is handled by Google (Gmail), under Google's privacy policy.

If you subscribe to Pro

Stripe takes the payment. Payments are handled by Stripe, Global Grid's payment processor. You type your card details into Stripe's own secure page; Global Grid never sees or stores them. Stripe also uses payment details for its own purposes, such as preventing fraud and meeting its legal duties, as its privacy policy explains.

What Global Grid keeps. To know that your account has Pro, Global Grid keeps only: your Stripe customer number, your subscription's number, status (for example active, cancelled or payment failed) and monthly price, when the current paid period ends, whether you have asked to cancel, and the dates needed for your rights and reminders (when the subscription started, when a launch offer ends, when the first full-price payment was made and when a reminder was last sent). For its accounts, Global Grid also keeps a record of each payment: Stripe's invoice number, the date and the amount, without your name or email address.

Adverts

There are no adverts on Global Grid today. If adverts are added to the free site later, this policy will be updated first, you will be asked before any advertising cookies are used, with a clear choice to say no, and Pro members will not be shown adverts.

Sponsors and links to other websites

Visitors without Pro may see a sponsor's message, labelled "Sponsored". It is plain text with a link to the sponsor's website; it loads nothing from the sponsor, uses no cookies and tells the sponsor nothing about you. If you follow a link to another website, that website's own privacy policy applies.

The legal basis

Your account, emails and Pro subscription: to provide the service you asked for (a contract with you). The weekly briefing: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time without affecting anything sent before. Security, stopping misuse and counting visits in total: legitimate interests in running a safe and reliable website. Answering questions on the Ask tab: legitimate interests in providing the feature you chose to use. Payment records, and answering lawful requests from the authorities: the law, which requires businesses to keep them for tax. Emails you send: legitimate interests in answering them.

How long it is kept

Account details are kept until you delete your account, which you can do yourself at any time in your account settings; that removes your email address, alerts, watchlist, API keys and subscription details straight away, and cancels any subscription. Sign-in links stop working after 15 minutes and are deleted within the hour; a sign-in lasts up to 30 days. Copies of subscription emails (which include your email address) are kept for up to 60 days so that none is sent twice, including after an account is deleted. Stripe keeps records of payments for as long as the law requires (in the UK, usually six years), and Global Grid keeps its own payment records (invoice number, date and amount) for six full tax years, then deletes them. The site's daily visit totals are kept for about 13 months. Cloudflare and Resend keep their logs for limited periods, set out in their own policies.

Where it is stored

Global Grid's own records are kept on Cloudflare's servers. Cloudflare, Resend and Stripe may handle data in the United States and other countries; they protect it with the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK-US data bridge or approved contract terms.

Your rights

You can ask for a copy of the personal data held about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, ask for it in a format you can take elsewhere, ask for its use to be limited while a concern is looked into, and object to how it is used. Where something is based on your consent (the weekly briefing), you can withdraw it at any time. You can delete your account yourself at any time. Global Grid will answer within one month, as the law requires, and there is normally no charge. Some records must be kept by law even if you ask for them to be deleted (payment records, explained above). If you are unhappy with how your data is handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office; you do not have to contact Global Grid first.

Keeping it safe

Global Grid keeps as little as it can, for as short a time as it can. Sign-in links, sessions and API keys are stored only in scrambled form, the site is served only over secure (HTTPS) connections, and only the owner can reach the account records. No website can promise to be perfectly secure, so please keep your email account safe: anyone who can read your email can use your sign-in links. If something ever goes wrong that puts your data at risk, Global Grid will tell the Information Commissioner's Office and, where the law requires, you.

No automated decisions

Global Grid does not make decisions about you by computer that have legal or similarly important effects. Automatic checks, such as daily limits and whether a subscription is active, only decide what the site shows you.

Changes

If this policy changes in a way that matters, account holders will be told by email before the change takes effect.