Privacy

Privacy Policy

Effective September 28, 2026

GridPulse shows live stress on the US power grid, on the web at gridpulsemap.com and in the GridPulse app for iPhone, with its widgets, alerts and Live Activities. It is built to work with as little information about you as possible. This page explains exactly what that is.

The short version

No accounts. There is nothing to sign up for or log in to.
No ads, no tracking, no analytics. GridPulse has no advertising or analytics SDKs and no tracking pixels, and it sets no cookies.
Nothing sold or shared for advertising. We don't sell your information, share it for advertising or build profiles.
Locations are rounded first. A location is rounded to about 1 km on your device before it is sent anywhere. The server never logs it or writes it to disk. If you use alerts or Live Activities, it keeps only each place's county, grid region and zone, with the place's name and this iPhone's push tokens.
Alerts are optional. Turning alerts off in the app deletes what the server kept for them.

Using the map, the dashboard and the app

To send you pages and live grid data, our server receives what any web server receives: your IP address and standard request details, such as the address requested and your browser or app version.

GridPulse's server does not keep access logs. When a request fails, it logs the method and path only, never the query string (which can hold a search or a rounded location), your IP address or a device token.

To stop any one client from overloading the free public data sources GridPulse relies on, the server counts requests per IP address (for IPv6, per network block). These counters live only in the server's memory. They are never written to disk or to logs, and they are dropped as newer visitors replace them or when the server restarts.

The grid data itself (demand, capacity, prices, fuel mix, weather and hazards) comes from public feeds that our server fetches on its own schedule. Nothing about you is sent to those sources.

Searching for a place

On the website (the map and the dashboard), what you type in the search box, up to 80 characters, is sent to GridPulse, which looks it up with Open-Meteo's geocoding service. Our server makes that request, so Open-Meteo sees our server, not you. To avoid repeat lookups, the server keeps recent searches and their results in memory only (at most 2,000 of them), with no link to who searched. It reuses a result for up to 24 hours, and the search stays in memory until newer searches replace it or the server restarts.
In the app, what you type is searched with Apple Maps on your iPhone, which Apple's privacy policy covers. As you type, text without numbers (such as a city, street or business name) and a 5-digit ZIP code also go to GridPulse's search, handled the same way as on the website. Anything else with a number in it, such as a street address, goes only to Apple Maps and is never sent to GridPulse.

Your location and "your area"

Your location is used only when you ask for it ("Use my location" on the map, or your current location in the app), and only after your browser or iPhone asks your permission.
It is rounded to 2 decimal places, about 1 km, on your device before it is stored or sent anywhere. Your exact location never leaves your device. In the app, the area's name (such as "Austin, TX") comes from Apple's geocoder on your iPhone, using the rounded point, and only the city and state are kept.
To show the utility, grid region, local zone, weather and alerts for a place, the website, the app and its widgets send that rounded point (or a searched city's center, rounded the same way) to GridPulse. The app does this again when it refreshes your saved places.
The server looks the point up with the public services listed under Services involved. It uses the rounded point, and for weather an even coarser area of about 10 km.
The server does not write the point to disk or to logs. So repeat lookups are quick, it keeps recent lookups and their results in memory: it reuses a result for up to 24 hours, and the entry stays in memory until newer lookups replace it or the server restarts. To save repeat weather requests, it may keep the National Weather Service's forecast-grid details for a roughly 10 km area on its disk for up to 7 days. Those entries are not linked to any person, device or IP address.
In the app, your saved places (their names, rounded points, area names and what was found there) stay on your iPhone, shared with the GridPulse widgets. Deleting a place, or the app, removes them.

Alerts (iPhone app, optional)

Alerts are off until you turn them on. When you do, the app sends GridPulse:

this iPhone's push notification token for GridPulse, which Apple issues so a notification can reach the app. It is specific to GridPulse on this device and does not contain your name or contact details;
for each saved place you follow (up to 5): the name you gave it (up to 40 characters), its grid region and local zone, and its rounded point;
your alert settings: which alerts you want, the level that triggers them, quiet hours and your iPhone's time zone, so quiet hours follow your clock;
whether the app is a development or App Store build, so notifications go through the right Apple server.

Each time the app registers (when you turn alerts on or change them, and when you open the app), the server uses each place's rounded point to find the county it is in (a 5-digit county code used to match National Weather Service warnings to your places), and then discards the coordinates. It stores the token, your place names, regions, zones and county codes, your settings, when you registered and when the app last checked in, and a short record of which alerts it last sent so it doesn't repeat them. To confirm that a new token works, it may send one silent notification that you won't see.

Notifications are delivered by Apple Push Notification service (APNs), which receives the token and the notification's text. Please don't use personal details, such as someone's full name, as a place name.

The registration is deleted:

right away, when you turn alerts off in the app;
90 days after the app last checked in (it checks in each time you open it), for example after you delete the app;
30 days after Apple reports that the token is no longer valid. No alerts are sent to it in the meantime.

Older copies can remain for a while in our host's automatic disk backups (see How long information is kept).

Live Activities (iPhone app, optional)

If you start a Live Activity for a grid, the app sends GridPulse that activity's push token, the grid region it follows, the name shown with it, whether it was started automatically and, if you have used alerts on this iPhone, its notification token, so the activity can be matched to your alert settings. When you start one, the name is the city of a saved place on that grid, or else the name you gave the place, if you have one. When GridPulse starts one for you (below), it is the name you gave the place, and APNs receives that name as well. The server uses these only to keep the activity up to date through APNs. It deletes them when GridPulse sees that the activity has ended or been dismissed (right away if the app is running, otherwise the next time it runs), and in any case about 8 hours after the activity starts, when iOS ends it.

If you turn on "Live Activity when my grid is High" in the Alerts screen, the app also sends a Live Activity start token, so the server can start one when a saved place's grid reaches High. The server keeps that token with your alert registration and uses it only while the option is on. Turning the option off deletes it, as does deleting the registration.

Share creates a link such as gridpulsemap.com/r/ercot. It names the region only, never your location or anything about you.

Settings kept in your browser

The website remembers a few display choices in your browser's local storage: whether the night lights are on (gp-lights), which map layers are on (gp-layers) and the dashboard's light or dark theme (gp-theme). They stay in your browser, are never sent to GridPulse, and you can remove them by clearing this site's data in your browser. GridPulse sets no cookies.

Services involved

Render hosts GridPulse's server and its storage in the United States (Ohio). Render, and Cloudflare, which Render uses to route traffic, handle your connection and may keep their own operational logs, including IP addresses, under their own privacy policies.
Apple delivers notifications and Live Activity updates (APNs) and, in the app, provides maps, Apple Maps search, place names and location services on your iPhone.
Public lookup services, which our server asks about a rounded point or a search, so they see our server and not you: HIFLD Electric Retail Service Territories (hosted on Esri's ArcGIS Online), the U.S. Census Bureau Geocoder, the FCC Area API (used when the Census Geocoder is unavailable), the National Weather Service (weather and alerts) and Open-Meteo (place search, and weather when the National Weather Service has none). When it is enabled, OpenEI's Utility Rate Database is asked about a utility by its ID, never by location.
Files your browser loads directly from the website: fonts from Google Fonts, map code and outlines from the jsDelivr CDN, and daytime relief imagery from NASA GIBS. As with any web request, these providers receive your IP address and browser details. The night-lights imagery is loaded through GridPulse's own server.
Links you follow to grid operators, government agencies, Wikipedia or map apps take you to sites with their own privacy policies.

What we don't do

No accounts, ads, advertising or analytics SDKs, tracking pixels or cookies.
No selling or sharing of personal information, for advertising or for any other purpose.
No profiles, and no combining what you send with information from other sources.
No storing of your precise location, or of any location with your IP address.

How long information is kept

Request counters by IP: Memory only; dropped as newer visitors replace them or when the server restarts.
Place searches: Memory only, not linked to anyone. A result is reused for up to 24 hours; the search stays in memory until newer searches replace it or the server restarts.
Rounded-point lookups: Memory only. A result is reused for up to 24 hours; the entry stays in memory until newer lookups replace it or the server restarts. Weather-grid details for a roughly 10 km area may stay on disk up to 7 days, not linked to anyone.
Alert registration: Until you turn alerts off, 90 days after the app last checked in, or 30 days after Apple reports the token invalid.
Live Activity tokens: Until GridPulse sees the activity end or be dismissed, at most about 8 hours. The optional start token is kept until you turn that option off or your alert registration is deleted.
Disk backups: Render, our host, backs up the disk that holds alert registrations and Live Activity tokens once a day and keeps each backup for at least 7 days, so deleted entries can remain in older backups until Render removes them. If the server ever finds one of those files unreadable, it moves the damaged copy aside on the disk instead of deleting it; that copy is never used to send anything.
Error logs: Method and path only, kept by our host for its standard log period.
Browser settings: In your browser, until you clear them.

Children

GridPulse is a general-audience service. It is not directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, for example in a place name or an email, contact us and we will delete it.

Security

Connections to GridPulse use HTTPS. Locations are rounded on your device, device tokens are never written to logs, and the alert registry is kept on the host's private disk, which is not publicly accessible. No system is perfectly secure, but GridPulse keeps very little, so there is very little to protect.

Your choices

Skip location. Search for a city or ZIP code instead, or turn off location access for GridPulse in your browser or in iOS Settings.
Delete your alert registration by turning alerts off in the app's Alerts screen.
End a Live Activity from the Lock Screen at any time, or turn off Live Activities for GridPulse in iOS Settings.
Clear browser storage by clearing this site's data in your browser.

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct or delete personal information about you. Because GridPulse has no accounts and stores no emails or contact details (only device push tokens and the place names you choose), we usually can't tell which information belongs to a particular person; the controls above act on your data directly. For anything else, email us and we will help as far as we can.

Changes to this policy

If GridPulse changes how it handles information, we will update this page and the effective date at the top.

Contact

Questions or requests about privacy: support@gridpulsemap.com. If you email us, we use your address and message only to answer you.