Intertie Constraint Shadow Prices (5-minute)

CAISO OASIS 5-minute real-time shadow prices on intertie / scheduling-point constraints, by tie and flow direction.

Congestion & Constraints data

Download data

Native record

intertie constraint x 5-minute interval

5-minute publication cadence

Evidence

Observed market data

Published observations from the named source

Time basis

Point-in-time records

UTC · event_time

Overview

The shadow price is the marginal cost of a binding intertie limit, so this is the direct signal for congestion between CAISO and neighboring balancing areas: a non-zero price means an import/export path is constrained and is shaping locational prices at the border. Traders use it to explain inter-BAA basis and to see which ties are binding and in which direction, and operators use it to track where transfer limits are actively holding back scheduling. History spans 2015 to present at ~99% daily coverage. The official source is CAISO OASIS.

Query contract

Preserve one canonical row per (event_time, ti_id, ti_direction) before aggregating.

Analysis rules

Group only after preserving the declared grain: event_time, ti_id, ti_direction.

Schema9

Column

Type

event_timeDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

ti_idLowCardinality(String)

ti_directionLowCardinality(String)

prcNullable(Float64)

constraint_causeNullable(String)

opr_dtNullable(Date32)

opr_hrNullable(Int32)

opr_intervalNullable(Int32)

ingested_atDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

Sample data

event_time	ti_id	ti_direction	prc	constraint_cause	opr_dt	opr_hr	opr_interval	ingested_at
2026-09-30 05:40:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	9	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:35:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	8	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:30:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	7	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:30:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	7	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:25:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	6	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:25:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	6	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:20:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	5	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:20:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	5	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:20:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	5	2026-09-30 05:25:50.411958
2026-09-30 05:15:00.000000	TEPC_BA_EXP_ITC	E	-0.01	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	4	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:15:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	4	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:15:00.000000	TEPC_BA_EXP_ITC	E	-0.01	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	4	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:15:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	4	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:15:00.000000	TEPC_BA_EXP_ITC	E	-0.01	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	4	2026-09-30 05:25:50.411958
2026-09-30 05:15:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	4	2026-09-30 05:25:50.411958
2026-09-30 05:10:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	3	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:10:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	3	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:10:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	3	2026-09-30 05:25:50.411958
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	PACE_FOURCORNE345_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	LDWP_IPP_NORTH	I	-0.01621	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:45:47.483436
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	PACE_FOURCORNE345_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	LDWP_IPP_NORTH	I	-0.01621	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:35:46.151999
2026-09-30 05:05:00.000000	PALOVRDE_ITC	I	-0.0012	Base Case	2026-09-29	23	2	2026-09-30 05:25:50.411958

Coverage

98.8% complete50 gap days4,241 days with data

Show coverage history

Coverage: 98.8%Days with data: 4,241Gaps: 50

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Related congestion & constraints data

Related congestion & constraints data
Dataset	Description
CAISO Day-Ahead Binding ConstraintsCAISO · hourly	Which transmission facilities bound in CAISO's day-ahead market and what each one cost, one row per interval and constraint. 463,496 rows, 2015-01 to now. Columns: event_time, constraint_name, shadow_price_usd_mwh, plus constraint_cause. The shadow price is the marginal cost of the binding limit — what the market would have saved from one more megawatt of capability on that element. This is the table that answers WHY congestion appeared; a price spread between two locations shows that they separated but not which facility separated them.
CAISO Real-Time Binding ConstraintsCAISO · 5-minute	Which transmission facilities bound in CAISO's real-time market and what each one cost, one row per interval and constraint. 6.43M rows, 2015-01 to now. Columns: event_time, constraint_name, shadow_price_usd_mwh, plus constraint_type ('intertie', 4.06M rows, or 'nomogram', 2.36M), direction, and constraint_cause. The shadow price is the marginal cost of the binding limit — what the market would have saved from one more megawatt of capability on that element. This is the table that answers WHY congestion appeared; a price spread between two locations shows that they separated but not which facility separated them.
Constraint Shift Factor RunsCAISO · nightly (one row per completed run)	One row per COMPLETED nightly estimation of CAISO constraint shift factors, and the only record that a run finished. Resolve the latest usable run here — computed_at = (SELECT max(computed_at) FROM atg.caiso_constraint_sensitivity_runs) — and never off max(computed_at) of the sensitivities themselves, because a run writes its rows in blocks that all carry the new timestamp and an unfinished or abandoned run would otherwise look like the newest one. Each row also carries how much evidence that run had: interval_coverage is the fraction of published dispatch intervals that survived admission, intervals_refused_unexplained counts intervals showing congestion with no constraint recorded as binding (an unobserved binding set), constraint_feed_lag_minutes is how far the constraint feed trailed the price feed, and constraints_seen / constraints_in_fit / constraints_reported show how many constraints bound, how many were good enough to control for, and how many earned a published estimate.
Constraint Shift Factors (Estimated)CAISO · nightly (60-day rolling estimation window)	Estimated sensitivity of every CAISO pricing location's price to every binding transmission constraint: one row per constraint, contingency, and location, recomputed nightly over a rolling 60-day window. This is what answers 'which nodes drive this constraint' and 'which constraints is this node exposed to'. Covers CAISO's INTERTIE AND NOMOGRAM constraints, not internal transmission branches, over roughly 19,400 pricing nodes. CAISO publishes no contingency or terminal names on this feed, so contingency_name, from_station and to_station are always empty. shift_factor is in the ISO's orientation — POSITIVE means an incremental MW injected at that node increases loading on the constraint and the node is paid below system lambda while it binds; NEGATIVE means generation there relieves the constraint and earns a premium. These are ESTIMATES recovered from the price identity LMP = energy - sum(shift_factor x shadow_price), not a published PTDF matrix. They are measured RELATIVE TO THE MARKET'S REFERENCE — the identity yields SF(node) - SF(reference), so a single absolute value should be quoted as 'relative to the system reference' rather than as the node's PTDF, while DIFFERENCES between nodes are exact because the reference term cancels. Three further differences from a published matrix: they describe a NODE (a generator at that node inherits its location's value, and two units at one node are indistinguishable), they reflect the topology actually in effect across the window including outages rather than a stated base case, and every one carries a std_error from a 200-draw block bootstrap that resamples whole days. Read std_error before quoting shift_factor: an estimate whose absolute value is not at least twice its standard error is not distinguishable from zero. estimation_status says why a row has no number — 'thin_support' (in the fit, so it is controlled for, but under 12 binding intervals or under 3 distinct binding days), 'no_support' (under 3 binding intervals; not a regressor), or 'collinear' (it bound in lockstep with another constraint, so the two cannot be separated). Where from_station and to_station are populated they identify the monitored element and are NOT the constrained direction — the sign of shift_factor is what says which way. Every read must pin computed_at to one run, and must resolve that run through the companion atg.<iso>_constraint_sensitivity_runs ledger rather than off max(computed_at) here — rows are written in blocks that all carry the new timestamp, so an unfinished or abandoned run would otherwise look like the newest. Mixing runs averages a node across different network topologies.