API Released That Allows Access To U.S. Electric Power Data

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) today made electricity data more accessible than ever before with the release of a new online service. The agency’s first-ever Application Programming Interface (API) allows developers to design web and mobile apps that harness a wealth of information about the U.S. electricity sector. The free API will give developers access to data on electricity generation, retail sales, and average prices, and the types of fuel that are used to generate electricity at the state and national levels. Electricity generation and fuel consumption data for individual power plants with more than 1 megawatt of capacity also are available. Currently, EIA’s API is released as a beta product with 427,000 electricity series and then these data are structured into a hierarchical set of 39,000 categories. It will be interesting to see how this data is used and if it will make help the public sector or make it into Apps.