RTD LMP (5-minute)

CAISO real-time dispatch locational marginal prices at five-minute resolution.

Prices data CAISO market

Query with the agent Open on map

Native record

pricing node x 5-minute RTD interval

5-minute (RTD) publication cadence

Evidence

Observed market data

Published observations from the named source

In Ask the Grid

PNode prices on the CAISO map

Values for the live grid surface

Overview

Each pricing-node interval includes total LMP plus CAISO-published energy, congestion, loss, and greenhouse-gas components. These components explain the arithmetic composition of the price; identifying the exact binding facility responsible for a node's congestion component still requires direct constraint-to-node attribution evidence.

Query contract

Preserve one canonical row per (event_time, market_run, node) before aggregating.

Analysis rules

Group only after preserving the declared grain: event_time, market_run, node.

Related analysis

day-ahead versus real-time nodal price · Use the same pricing node and delivery hour; average five-minute RTD observations within that hour before comparing with the hourly DAM clearing price.

Interpretation

RTD is CAISO's five-minute real-time dispatch market; do not describe it as the distinct 15-minute RTPD market.
Energy, congestion, loss, and GHG components are the arithmetic composition of LMP.

Access

Query from your own tools

Use the guarded HTTP endpoint directly, or connect an MCP client and load the dataset contract with describe_data before calling query_data.

CAISO MCP API reference

HTTP endpoint

POST /api/v1/datasets/caiso_lmp_rtd_5m/query

Need the full history of this dataset in Snowflake, Databricks or your own storage? Data services delivers it on a schedule.

Schema9

Column

Type

event_timeDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

market_runLowCardinality(String)

nodeLowCardinality(String)

lmp_totalNullable(Float32)

energy_componentNullable(Float32)

congestion_componentNullable(Float32)

loss_componentNullable(Float32)

ghg_componentNullable(Float32)

ingested_atDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

Sample data

event_time	market_run	node	lmp_total	energy_component	loss_component	ghg_component	ingested_at
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARSONN_LNODE42	40.49331	40.70088	-0.20757	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARSONN_LNODE43	40.49331	40.70088	-0.20757	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARSO_BP_LNODE115	41.3464	40.70328	0.64311	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASCADE_LNODE54	40.17584	40.70088	-0.52504	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTERCR_LNODE5A	40.1014	40.69968	-0.59829	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTER_LNODEEHI	40.69968	40.69968	0	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTWRIT_LNODELD2	40.9573	40.70088	0.25642	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTWRIT_LNODELD3	40.9573	40.70088	0.25642	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTWRIT_LNODELD4	40.94102	40.70088	0.24014	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTWRT_1_N001	45.50372	40.70208	0.32977	4.47187	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTWRT_1_N010	45.50372	40.70208	0.32977	4.47187	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARUTHRS_6_LN001	46.5382	40.70208	1.36425	4.47187	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARUTHRS_6_N001	46.5382	40.70208	1.36425	4.47187	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CAR_1_CARMEN_S_PLANT-APND	41.41966	40.70328	0.71638	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CARTERCR_LNODE4A	40.1014	40.69968	-0.59829	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CAR_DES_3_CAR_DES_BATGNODE	15.31741	15.51601	-0.1986	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASCADE_LNODE38	40.17584	40.70088	-0.52504	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASCADE_LNODE37	40.17584	40.70088	-0.52504	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CAR_DES_3_CAR_DES_SLRGNODE	15.31741	15.51601	-0.1986	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASAGRND_LNODEED23	39.59382	40.70088	-1.10706	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASAGRND_LNODEED22	39.59382	40.70088	-1.10706	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASAGRND_LNODED2_1	39.59382	40.70088	-1.10706	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CASCADE_LNODE20	40.17584	40.70088	-0.52504	0	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CAR_SM_LNODENE1	45.23388	40.70328	0.05873	4.47187	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215
2026-10-19 07:20:00.000000	rtd_5min	CAR_SM_LNODENE4	45.23388	40.70328	0.05873	4.47187	2026-10-19 07:18:15.703215

Coverage

Showing the last 244 days of a 3,943-day history (Jan 1, 2016 → Oct 17, 2026). This dataset holds 16.1B rows — too many to count day by day on every visit — so the calendar and the figures below cover the window from Feb 16, 2026.

100.0% complete0 gap days246 days with data

Show coverage history

Coverage: 100.0%Days with data: 246Gaps: 0

2026

gaplessmore

Related prices data

Related prices data
Dataset	Description
CAISO Day-Ahead PricesCAISO · hourly (IFM)	CAISO day-ahead locational marginal prices, one row per interval and location. 1.21B rows, 2016-01 to the next delivery day. Carries price_usd_mwh only. The component columns exist in the raw CAISO day-ahead feed but are entirely NULL in it, so this table carries no decomposition rather than four empty columns. Locations are node (26k — including the TH_ trading hubs such as TH_SP15_GEN-APND; CAISO has no 'hub' kind), interface (the ties), zone (6 aggregates only); location_id joins atg.caiso_locations for the readable name, and kind is carried inline so a hub-only or zone-only question needs no join at all. Every market's day-ahead price table in this catalog has these same column names, so a cross-market price comparison is a UNION rather than a per-ISO rewrite. Revisions are already collapsed — read it plainly.
CAISO Real-Time PricesCAISO · 5-minute (RTD)	CAISO real-time locational marginal prices, one row per interval and location. 15.76B rows, 2016-01 to now. Carries price_usd_mwh plus energy_usd_mwh, congestion_usd_mwh, loss_usd_mwh and ghg_usd_mwh — CAISO is the only market here that publishes a greenhouse-gas component. Locations are node (26k — including the TH_ trading hubs such as TH_SP15_GEN-APND; CAISO has no 'hub' kind), interface (the ties), zone (6 aggregates only); location_id joins atg.caiso_locations for the readable name, and kind is carried inline so a hub-only or zone-only question needs no join at all. Every market's real-time price table in this catalog has these same column names, so a cross-market price comparison is a UNION rather than a per-ISO rewrite. Revisions are already collapsed — read it plainly.
Day-Ahead LMPCAISO · hourly (DAM)	Hourly locational marginal prices from CAISO's day-ahead market for pricing nodes across the California ISO footprint. These are cleared market outcomes for future delivery, not forecasts. Comparing the exact same delivery hour and pricing node with five-minute RTD prices shows day-ahead versus real-time divergence. The official source is CAISO OASIS.
Fuel Region Gas PricesCAISO · Daily (gas day)	CAISO's daily natural-gas price for each of its fuel regions, in $/MMBtu. CAISO posts this as FUEL REGION \| GAS INDEX \| TRANSPORT \| TOTAL, and the value here is that total: a published gas index plus a transport adder, i.e. the delivered cost of gas to that region, not a hub spot assessment. It is the number CAISO uses to reference and floor gas-fired energy bids, so it is the fuel-cost input underneath thermal offer behavior across the West. 201 fuel regions are currently active across 27 electric subregions, reaching well beyond California: Waha and El Paso Permian in West Texas, Opal, Kern River, Cheyenne, CIG and the San Juan points in the Rockies, Malin, Stanfield, Northwest Sumas and Kingsgate in the Pacific Northwest, Alberta AECO in Canada, and the SoCal Citygate and PG&E Citygate burner-tip regions in California. Receipt-point regions such as Waha (FRWHA1-3), El Paso Permian (FREPP1-4), Opal, Malin and Sumas track the underlying published index closely, because their transport adder is small; citygate regions are burner-tip costs and spread widely, so they are not interchangeable with a hub price — on 2026-08-20 the 40 region ids named SoCal Citygate ranged from 4.43 to 8.15 $/MMBtu on the same day. Region ids ending in GHG carry a California carbon-allowance adder on top and are a different quantity again. Negative prices are real and are concentrated in the takeaway-constrained Permian regions: 0.97% of rows are below zero, to a minimum of -10.51 $/MMBtu. Rows are stamped hourly, 24 per region per gas day, but the price is constant across a gas day, and the gas day is the America/Los_Angeles calendar date — it steps at Pacific midnight, so daily rollups must use toDate(event_time, 'America/Los_Angeles'). The current gas day is partial until the next 14:30 UTC pull, though its price is already complete. History runs from 2015-02-01 and is continuous and complete from 2026-02-01 onward; before that date it covers 1,972 of 4,018 days in whole-month blocks (February through April, June, September and November of each year), so a pre-2026 average over an arbitrary window is an average over the months that are present, not over the period requested. Hub attribution is INFERRED from CAISO's region coding, not published: CAISO's monthly fuel-region posting lists region ids with their index, transport and total and no hub names at all, and FRWHA does not appear in it — so 'Waha' here reads the id, corroborated by the price sitting where Waha sits against Henry Hub, rather than by a CAISO mapping. Treat a region as the delivered cost CAISO assigns to it; do not cite it as a hub assessment. This dataset is FUEL-COST CONTEXT, not market settlement data, and is queryable from every active grid scope: a question asked under ERCOT about West Texas gas cost answers from the Waha-region ids here, said as delivered fuel cost. The official source is CAISO OASIS report PRC_FUEL.