Terms of Use

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Solarcom ("Solarcom", "we", "us"), the operator of solarcom.in and its community forum (together, the "Service"). By accessing or using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Our Privacy Policy and Disclaimer form part of these Terms. When you create an account you are asked to accept them expressly, and we record that you did.

1. Who may use Solarcom

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account. Reading public content needs no account. We do not knowingly allow anyone under 18 to register; if we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18 we will close it and delete its personal data.

You may use the Service on behalf of an organisation only if you are authorised to bind it, in which case "you" means that organisation.

2. Your account

• Provide accurate registration details and keep them current.
• You may register with an email address and password, or by signing in with Google. An address can be used one way or the other, not both — if it already has a password account, sign in with that password.
• You must confirm your email address before you can post. Reading the forum needs no account, but asking, answering and commenting need a confirmed address. Changing your address means confirming the new one.
• You are responsible for everything that happens under your account. Keep your password confidential and tell us promptly at hello@solarcom.in if you believe it has been compromised.
• One person, one account. Do not sell, share, or transfer your account.
• Do not impersonate another person or organisation, or misrepresent your qualifications, licences, certifications, or affiliation with an installer, manufacturer, DISCOM or government body.

3. Acceptable use

In accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 ("IT Rules"), you must not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that:

• belongs to another person and to which you have no right;
• is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another's privacy including bodily privacy, insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, relates to or encourages money laundering or gambling, or is otherwise contrary to law;
• is harmful to children;
• infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary right;
• deceives or misleads anyone about the origin of a message, or knowingly communicates information that is patently false, untrue or misleading;
• impersonates another person;
• threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order; incites the commission of any cognisable offence; prevents the investigation of any offence; or insults another nation;
• contains a virus or any other code designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer resource;
• violates any law for the time being in force.

Because Solarcom is a solar knowledge community, you also must not:

• make knowingly false or misleading claims about pricing, savings, subsidy entitlements, product performance, certifications or safety;
• post instructions for electrical, battery or grid-connection work that are unsafe, or that encourage anyone to bypass a licensed professional, safety code or DISCOM requirement;
• post spam or advertising, or promote yourself or anything you have a commercial interest in — including your own business, products, services or property, or yourself as an individual — whether by advertising offers or prices, soliciting customers or clients, or posting contact details or links for that purpose; or post affiliate links or repetitive content. Installers and vendors may take part, and must disclose their commercial interest wherever it is relevant to what they write;
• disclose another person's personal information — including electricity consumer numbers, meter numbers, phone numbers or addresses — without their consent;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, other accounts or our infrastructure, or interfere with its operation;
• scrape, crawl or harvest content or user data by automated means without our prior written permission, or place unreasonable load on the Service.

Breach of this clause may result in removal of content and immediate suspension or termination of your account, and where the law requires it, reporting to the appropriate authority.

4. Your content and the licence you grant us

You retain ownership of the questions, answers, comments, and other material you submit ("Your Content"). By submitting it you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt for formatting, publish, and display Your Content in connection with operating, promoting, and improving the Service.

This licence exists so the community works as intended — your answer stays readable on the question you posted it to, and can be indexed by search engines. It continues for Your Content that remains on the Service after your account closes, because deleting one side of a public conversation would make the rest unintelligible for everyone else.

You confirm that you have the rights necessary to grant this licence, and that Your Content does not breach clause 3. You are solely responsible for Your Content.

You may edit your own questions, answers and comments, and delete your own answers and comments. An edited post is marked as edited. We keep the earlier text of anything you edit or delete, visible to our moderation staff only, so that a report about a post can still be assessed after it has been changed. This is set out in section 6 of the Privacy Policy.

5. Our content and marks

The Service itself — its software, design, layout, compilation of content, and the "Solarcom" name and logo — belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual property law. These Terms grant you no right to use our name or logo except to refer to the Service factually.

6. Moderation and enforcement

We are an intermediary within the meaning of the Information Technology Act, 2000. We do not pre-screen content and are not obliged to monitor it generally.

We may, at our discretion, remove or restrict content, limit features, or suspend or terminate accounts that we reasonably believe breach these Terms or applicable law, or that expose us or other users to legal risk or harm. Where practicable we tell you why. You may contest a decision through the grievance process in clause 10, and a suspended member may appeal even while unable to sign in.

Editing a post does not put it beyond moderation: our staff can see what it said before, and will act on the version that was reported. Deleting a post you have been reported for does not end the matter either.

7. Disclaimer

Our Disclaimer forms part of these Terms. In summary: content on Solarcom is community opinion, not professional engineering, electrical, financial, tax or legal advice; estimates and subsidy information are indicative only; we do not verify members or endorse what they say; we are not affiliated with any government body or DISCOM; dealings with installers and other third parties are solely between you and them; and electrical work must be carried out by a licensed professional. The Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

8. Availability and changes to the Service

We aim to keep the Service available but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue features at any time, and may impose limits on usage. Where a change materially reduces functionality you rely on, we will give reasonable notice if practicable.

9. Limitation of liability and indemnity

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, nor for loss of profits, revenue, savings, subsidy, data, goodwill, or business opportunity, arising out of or relating to your use of the Service — including any decision you make, equipment you buy, contract you sign or work you carry out in reliance on content published on it.

Our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) ₹1,000. The Service is provided free of charge, so in most cases this limit will be ₹1,000.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.

You agree to indemnify and hold us, our officers and staff harmless against claims, losses, damages, and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from Your Content, your use of the Service, or your breach of these Terms or applicable law.

10. Grievance redressal

In accordance with Rule 3(2) of the IT Rules, we have appointed a Grievance Officer to receive complaints about content on the Service, about a moderation decision, or about these Terms.

• Email: hello@solarcom.in

We acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days of receipt. A complaint about content that exposes an individual's private area, shows them in full or partial nudity or a sexual act, or impersonates them — including artificially morphed images — is acted on within 24 hours of receipt. Include a link to the content and the nature of your objection.

11. Complaints, takedowns and legal requests

Send every formal request to hello@solarcom.in with the request type in the subject line. We do not accept legal requests through forum posts, comments or social media. Most problems are resolved faster without a formal request — every post has a Report button that puts it straight into our moderation queue, and the support page covers account issues, impersonation and personal information posted without consent.

Copyright and trademark

If you own rights in material posted without your permission, your notice should include: a link to each item you say infringes (one link per item); identification of the work you own; your name, your relationship to the rights holder and contact details; a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised by you, your agent or the law; and a statement that the information in your notice is accurate.

Quoting a specification, a tariff table or a short passage with attribution is often fair dealing, so we will not always remove material on request alone. If your content was removed and you believe that was wrong, write to the same address explaining why. We will reconsider and tell you the outcome.

Court orders and government notices

We act on a court order, or a notification from an appropriate government agency, that requires us to remove or disable access to specific unlawful content, within the time the IT Rules require (currently 36 hours of receipt).

Law-enforcement requests for user information

We disclose user information only where the law requires it, or where disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, our users or the public. Where a lawful order requires it, we provide information within the time the IT Rules set (currently 72 hours). A request should come from an official email domain, identify the legal authority relied on, identify the account precisely by username or profile URL — display names are not unique — and state exactly what information is sought and for what period.

We review every request against the law relied on and will push back on requests that are overbroad, vague or unlawful. Where we are permitted to, we notify the affected user before disclosing anything, unless a valid order forbids it or there is a genuine emergency involving a risk to life.

Emergencies: if there is an imminent risk of death or serious physical harm, write with "EMERGENCY" in the subject line and explain the risk. Preservation: you may ask us to preserve specific records while an order is obtained. Preservation is not disclosure — we hold the data, and do not hand it over without lawful process.

Defamation and personal-rights claims

We do not adjudicate disputes of fact between users. If you say a post about you is false and damaging, tell us which statements you dispute and why, and we will review it against our community rules. For a determination that content is unlawful, a court order is the reliable route.

What to include, and what we cannot do

• Direct links to the specific content — a request we cannot map to specific items is one we cannot action.
• Your name, organisation, role, a reply address, and the legal basis relied on.
• We cannot remove content from search engines or third-party caches, give you legal advice, disclose user information without lawful process, or monitor the Service for a subject on your behalf.

Legal channels exist to protect people, not to win arguments. Notices sent to suppress honest criticism, a competitor's legitimate answer or an unfavourable product review will be refused, and repeated abuse of this process is itself a breach of these Terms.

12. Closing your account

You may stop using the Service at any time. To close your account, use Settings → Security or email hello@solarcom.in.

Closure is a request rather than an immediate deletion: we confirm it with you first, and you can withdraw the request until we act on it. Your account keeps working in the meantime. Where removing a post would make the rest of a public conversation unintelligible, we may anonymise it rather than delete it — the licence in clause 4 continues for content that remains on the Service.

We may suspend or terminate your access as described in clause 6. Clauses 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 15 and 17 survive termination.

13. Events beyond our control

We are not liable for any failure or delay in providing the Service caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including failure of hosting, network or email providers, power or telecommunications outages, cyber-attacks, natural disasters, epidemics, acts of government, or changes in law.

14. Notices and electronic communication

You agree that we may communicate with you electronically — by email to the address on your account, or by notice on the Service — and that such communications satisfy any legal requirement that a communication be in writing. Keep your email address current; a notice sent to it is treated as received.

15. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Subject to any non-waivable right you have to bring proceedings where you live, the competent courts in India have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Last updated" date above always reflects the current version. Where a change is material we will give reasonable advance notice through the Service or by email. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

17. General

• If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in force and the provision is applied to the maximum extent permitted.
• Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.
• You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Disclaimer, are the entire agreement between us regarding the Service. Headings are for convenience only.