Cofybox app terms and conditions

 

1. Project participation agreement

The conditions for participating in the project are described below. 

Duration

Participants are expected to be available until the end of the project, planned for May 2023.

Activities

Following activities are planned in the course of the project, participants agree with these activities in mutual agreement with pilot site coordinators:

• Installation of REScoopVPP devices in their premises using a limited amount of electricity of the participants.
• REScoopVPP devices will make use of the home network in order to communicate with residential assets (photovoltaic installation, digital meter, heat pump, electric vehicle charger, home battery and smart plugs).
• Measurement of production and consumption data.
• Organisation of information sessions concerning the goals of the project and specific tests
• Specific tests will be conducted. Each test will be communicated in advance. During the tests certains assets will be activated - deactivated - blocked during a certain period, this in common understanding with the participants, respecting comfort levels of the participants and respecting asset warranties (the REScoopVPP devices will not overrule any product liability warranty).
• Organisation of feedback sessions with the participants during or after performing tests.

Participants dashboard

participants will get access to a private dashboard during the project, with following characteristics: 

• Personal production and consumption data will be visualised. 
• Activation or de-activation of certain tests
• Energy prices for dynamic prices optimisation

Devices property

The devices installed in the dwelling of the pilot participants remain the property of the pilot manager cooperative and can be removed at its own discretion and at the cost of the pilot manager cooperative.

Early termination

 The activities of the project are planned to end at the end of May 2023. Any prior termination should be notified 14 days in advance to allow for the deletion of private data.

2. Private data processing agreement

REScoopVPP is a research project respecting privacy according to the European law (General Data Protection Regulation). 

Juridical basis

REScoopVPP is a European project co-funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme under Grant Agreement No. 893240 and aiming at establishing the most advanced community-driven smart building ecosystem for energy communities. REScoopVPP is a research project and end-users may join as pilot participants on a voluntary basis. 

Participants rights

All research participants have the right to quit the REScoopVPP experiments at any moment, have the right to leave the project and require the deletion of their data, without any consequences and have the right to be informed by the Data Controller about the type of processing their data. Also they have the right to access, correct and delete his/her data at any moment. You can also obtain information and ask for rectifying it. If you decide to exercise your rights, including the withdrawal from the project, please contact the persons below (“contact persons”). Note that data access, correction or deletion may take up to 14 days.

Privacy and confidentiality

The project partners will collect user-related data for the installation, the running and fine-tuning of the REScoopVPP tools. This data includes responses you may give in questionnaires, as well as  your consumption data and other appliances usage related information. Recorded data will not include any personal identification.

The consortium will comply with all European and national legislation relevant to the country where the data collections are taking place. To this end:

• Personal data managed by REScoopVPP partners will be pseudonymised and stored in a form which does not permit identification of users without the complementary information kept separately. 
• Data processing will be done in respect to the purposes for which the data is being collected.

Your decision to participate and therefore to give your authorization for the use and diffusion of the information provided by you is completely voluntary.

A data privacy impact assessment has been realised prior to pilot implementation, making sure that all components of the REScoopVPP tools, including hardware, software, networks and people are covered by security measures.

Data access and storage

Information will be held and used on a pseudonymised basis only for the purpose of the project REScoopVPP. Consumption data and other appliance usage-related information will be held on servers hosted in the European Union (or in the UK for British pilots) for processing. Your raw data will be kept confidential and not disclosed to third parties. Appropriate protection will be given for personal data stored 5 years after the end of the project for auditing purposes. 

More details on data categories, collection purpose, recipient and storage location is provided in section 3.

Data treatment duration

The research activities last from June 2020 to May 2023. After the end of the project the data will be only accessible to the European Commission, and for auditing purposes only, until a 5 year period has passed. After this period, the data of all non-active users will be deleted. The authorization for the use and access to this information is valid until the end of the study unless the user cancels it before. 

Contact persons

Your participation in the project is voluntary and implies that you agree on your personal data treatment. Consent can be refused, and withdrawal from the project is possible at any time per email to your cooperative representative.

3. Data category, collection purpose, recipient and storage location

Personal data	Purpose	Component and recipients	Storage location
High frequency electricity data High frequency heating data High Frequency temperature measurement List of available assets/  appliances COFY-Box device diagnostic (incl. connectivity) Location Flexibility preferences.	Establishing and improving an energy consumption profile based on existing assets,  in-home temperature, weather (using location).  Monitoring the good functioning of the COFY-Box  through device diagnosis.	COFY-Box  End-users have constant through the app. Pilot site managers (and any technical partner which is mandated by the pilot site managers. E.g. installer has access at least once) Developers (EnergieID, Ghent Uni., Carbon Co-op)	Local device storage Developers have remote access for improvement and maintenance.
COFY-Box device diagnostic (incl. connectivity) Flexibility preferences Minimised  electricity data  Minimised heating data Minimised temperature measurement Log-in credentials (incl. language preferences) Cooperatives membership Sharing preference (who has access to data) Access log (who accessed data) CoFy Box device diagnostic (incl. connectivity)	Sharing information  on energy consumption profile relevant for the community optimisation services (collective self-consumption, dynamic pricing or aggregation). Facilitating user's experience by saving preferences and authorised service providers (cooperative membership and other sharing preferences). Monitoring use and good functioning (access log and COFY-Box diagnostic)	COFY-Cloud (digital twin) End-users have constant access through the app. Developers (EID) Related co-op pilot site External parties with end-user’s permission (Data owner = end-user)	Cloud Storage within the EU. (Microsoft Azure West-Europe, Netherlands) (Default frequency = 5 minutes. Selected lab-pilots may have higher frequencies for in-depth analysis.)
All digital twin data (above) with explicit consent Clustered data (incl. cluster definition)	Sharing information on energy consumption profile relevant for the community optimisation services provided by third-parties.	cVPP system (shared) Related co-op pilot site External parties with pilot sites’ permission (Data owner = related pilot sites)	Cloud Storage within the EU. (Microsoft Azure West-Europe, Netherlands) (Frequency = 5 min Clustered data aggregation performed on scheduled intervals.)

4. More information about the REScoopVPP project

REScoopVPP is an European project led by energy cooperatives in order to set up new digital tools to facilitate the implementation of new services related to self-consumption, dynamic pricing and aggregation with the objective to support the integration of more renewable energy into the electricity grid.

• What? The REScoopVPP project combines front-runner energy cooperatives to create the most advanced community-driven smart building ecosystem for energy communities. The ecosystem consists of a Community-driven Flexibility Box (COFY-Box) acting as smart home controller, and a set of community tools to support energy services for aggregators, energy service companies, balance responsible parties and suppliers of renewable energy source-electricity. 
• Why? Community tools will enable energy communities to become real-time asset operators by employing demand and production forecasting algorithms, a dynamic pricing module and an explicit demand response solution. The results of the REScoopVPP project and any improvement made to the solution during the project will benefit a cooperative project aiming at making available to citizens initiatives smart home tools facilitating the energy transition.
• Where? REScoopVPP solutions will undergo a large-scale experimentation in Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and the UK. 
• When? The REScoopVPP project started in June 2020 and will end in May 2023
• Who? REScoopVPP gathers nine energy cooperative actors, two universities and a consultancy firm involved in its management.  The project is co-funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Programme under Grant Agreement No. 893240.  

More information on the project’s website: http://www.rescoopvpp.eu/.