OpenEI Utility Rate Database

What you can build

• Move recurring loads out of peak periods

  Tariff Window reads the energy and demand schedules for your rate, finds the hours that cost most, and proposes one schedule change at a time for pumps, heating, or charging.

  With Tariff Window

• Check whether another rate would cost less

  Rate Switch prices twelve months of interval data against every eligible rate for your utility in the database and proposes a switch request when one comes out cheaper.

  With Rate Switch

• Reconcile a utility invoice against the tariff

  Bill Reconcile recomputes the invoice from interval data and the rate record on file, then proposes a dispute or a corrected payable when the numbers disagree.

  With Bill Reconcile

• Charge tenants at the published rate

  Utility Chargeback applies the tariff's energy, demand, and fixed charges to each tenant's submeter reading and proposes the allocation for review.

  With Utility Chargeback

Requirements

• A free OpenEI API key
• Your utility's name or EIA id, or a site address or coordinates, to select candidate rates
• The version parameter set to latest or 3 through 8; versions 4 and later include international rates
• Interval meter data from another source if a tariff is to be priced against real consumption

Authentication

A free OpenEI API key passed as the api_key query parameter, registered at openei.org/services/api/signup.

Limits

• The documentation page states no rate limit; each request returns at most 500 records, and detail=full responses can time out
• Rates for roughly 150 utilities are checked annually; other records may be older, so read each record's last update date
• Records carry an approved flag and an is_default flag; filter on both when you need one expert-checked rate per utility and sector
• Reference listing: Fibric wires the rate lookup into a managed deployment on request; a person still confirms the chosen tariff matches the bill

Questions and answers

How does a rate record map hours to prices?

energyweekdayschedule and energyweekendschedule hold 12 arrays, one per month, each with one integer per hour from 12am to 11pm. The integer is the index of a period in energyratestructure, and each period holds tiers with a max, unit, rate, adj, and sell value. Demand schedules follow the same layout.

Does the database cover utilities outside the United States?

Mostly no. OpenEI lists international rates for Belize and Mexico, returned when version is 4 or later and country is set to an ISO 3-character code. The database is built on the EIA list of US utility companies.

What license applies to the rate data?

OpenEI states that content is available under Creative Commons Zero unless otherwise noted. Bulk downloads of all approved US and international rates are offered as CSV and JSON gzip files beside the API.