Overview

Actual hourly electricity demand in CAISO, one row per hour with a system total and one column per TAC area. 75,689 hours, 2018-01 to now. Columns: system_mw plus pge_mw, sce_mw, sdge_mw, vea_mw, mwd_mw. system_mw is CAISO's own CA ISO-TAC total. The five TAC areas are the CAISO balancing area's own partition. Wide rather than long, so "load right now" and "the 5 TAC area shares of it" are one row, not 6. Every market's load table in this catalog shares the system_mw column and the same hourly grain, so a cross-market demand comparison needs no reshaping.

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Use with MCP

This table is readable two ways, over the same guarded boundary. Over HTTP: POST /api/v1/datasets/caiso_load/query, described in the API reference. Or from an MCP client: connect a market below, then use search_data or describe_data to load its query contract before calling query_data.

CAISO MCP Server

Schema7

Column

Type

event_timeDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

system_mwNullable(Float64)

pge_mwNullable(Float64)

sce_mwNullable(Float64)

sdge_mwNullable(Float64)

vea_mwNullable(Float64)

mwd_mwNullable(Float64)

Sample rows

event_time	system_mw	pge_mw	sce_mw	sdge_mw	vea_mw	mwd_mw
2026-08-28 00:00:00.000000	43876	16342	22737	4485	130	182
2026-08-27 23:00:00.000000	44288	16536	23177	4259	134	182
2026-08-27 22:00:00.000000	44307	15787	23987	4215	136	182
2026-08-27 21:00:00.000000	43623	15261	23742	4304	133	183
2026-08-27 20:00:00.000000	41824	14782	22746	3985	127	184
2026-08-27 19:00:00.000000	41288	14274	22868	3841	120	185
2026-08-27 18:00:00.000000	42189	13967	23648	4279	111	184
2026-08-27 17:00:00.000000	41274	13701	22478	4812	99	184
2026-08-27 16:00:00.000000	39653	13545	21269	4567	88	184
2026-08-27 15:00:00.000000	37400	13469	19406	4262	79	184
2026-08-27 14:00:00.000000	34448	13152	17330	3711	71	184
2026-08-27 13:00:00.000000	31950	12780	15766	3152	67	185
2026-08-27 12:00:00.000000	30113	11870	14890	3103	66	184
2026-08-27 11:00:00.000000	29979	11645	14934	3154	64	182
2026-08-27 10:00:00.000000	30904	11980	15560	3117	65	182
2026-08-27 09:00:00.000000	31432	12036	15744	3401	68	183
2026-08-27 08:00:00.000000	32930	12601	16502	3573	72	182
2026-08-27 07:00:00.000000	34046	13223	16898	3667	76	182
2026-08-27 06:00:00.000000	36172	13981	18355	3572	83	181
2026-08-27 05:00:00.000000	39110	15158	19838	3840	93	181
2026-08-27 04:00:00.000000	41771	16298	20892	4294	105	182
2026-08-27 03:00:00.000000	43655	17156	21716	4483	118	182
2026-08-27 02:00:00.000000	44517	17239	22462	4502	131	183
2026-08-27 01:00:00.000000	45512	17423	23278	4485	143	183
2026-08-27 00:00:00.000000	46832	16897	24843	4763	148	181

Coverage

100.0% complete0 gap days3,162 days with data

Show coverage history ▾

Coverage: 100.0%Days with data: 3,162Gaps: 0

2026

2025

2024

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2018

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More data from CAISO

Battery Storage Net OutputObserved five-minute net output from standalone and hybrid battery storage across the CAISO footprint. The total supply_mw field is positive when batteries are discharging into the grid and negative when they are charging from the grid; standalone_batteries_mw and hybrid_batteries_mw are components of that total, not additional generation to add on top. This is the live operating series published in CAISO Today's Outlook, not nameplate capacity or state of charge.CAISO Day-Ahead Ancillary PricesCleared day-ahead ancillary-service capacity prices in CAISO, one row per hour, AS region and product. 2,172,326 rows, 2014-12 to now. Products: reg_up, reg_down, spin, non_spin, reg_mileage_up, reg_mileage_down. 12 CAISO ancillary-service regions (AS_CAISO, AS_NP26, AS_SP26 and their expanded variants). The expanded regions overlap the base ones by design — never sum across regions. price_usd_mw is a price for CAPACITY held in reserve — dollars per megawatt of commitment — not dollars per megawatt-hour of energy delivered. The two are different units and are not comparable to an LMP.CAISO Day-Ahead Binding ConstraintsWhich 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 Day-Ahead Load ForecastCAISO's day-ahead demand forecast, one row per forecast hour with a system total and one column per TAC area. 75,727 hours, 2018-01 through the next delivery day. Column-for-column identical to CAISO Load (caiso_load) on purpose: system_mw, pge_mw, sce_mw, sdge_mw, vea_mw, mwd_mw. Forecast-versus-actual is therefore a plain join on event_time with no reshaping on either side. CAISO publishes no issue-time column for this feed, so there is no vintage axis here — this is the day-ahead market run for each hour, not a curve of successive forecasts. CAISO's other horizons (two-day, seven-day, real-time) live in caiso.load_forecast_horizons and only begin in May 2026.