Load Actuals

Hourly actual electricity demand from CAISO OASIS, reported for the CAISO system total and TAC load areas such as PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E.

Load data CAISO market

Query with the agent Open on map

Native record

TAC area x 5-minute observation

hourly publication cadence

Evidence

Observed market data

Published observations from the named source

In Ask the Grid

TAC demand on the CAISO map

Values for the live grid surface

Overview

This settlements-grade series is published after the operating interval rather than as a live five-minute reading. It supports forecast benchmarking, historical load shape, and aligned hourly net-load analysis. The official source is CAISO OASIS.

Query contract

At one event_time, tac_area_name='CA ISO-TAC' is the CAISO system-total row. Other TAC rows are area values and must not be summed together with that total.

Analysis rules

Use CA ISO-TAC directly for CAISO-wide load; do not derive the system total by summing overlapping TAC rows.
For an area ranking, compare every requested TAC at one exact common event_time.

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_load_actual/query

Schema5

Column

Type

event_timeDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

tac_area_nameLowCardinality(String)

mwNullable(Float64)

labelLowCardinality(String)

ingested_atDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

Sample data

event_time	tac_area_name	mw	label	ingested_at
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	WALCDSW	168	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	WALCAEPCO	373	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	WALC	888	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	VEA-TAC	55	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	TPWR	349	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	TIDC	310	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	TEPC	1132	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	SRP	3643	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	SDGE-TAC	2624	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	SCL	797	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	SCE-TAC	11619	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	PSEI	2086	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	PNM	1373	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	PGE-TAC	10896	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	PGE	2226	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	PACW	1851	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	PACE	4898	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	NWMT	1053	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	NEVP	4052	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	MWD-TAC	176	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	LADWP	2553	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	IPCO	1664	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	GWA	0	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	EPE	852	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503
2026-09-29 07:00:00.000000	CA ISO-TAC	25370	Total Actual Hourly Integrated Load	2026-09-29 08:10:32.034503

Coverage

100.0% complete0 gap days3,194 days with data

Show coverage history

Coverage: 100.0%Days with data: 3,194Gaps: 0

2026

2025

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

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Related load data

Related load data
Dataset	Description
CAISO Day-Ahead Load ForecastCAISO · hourly (day-ahead run)	CAISO'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.
CAISO Hourly Actual LoadCAISO · hourly	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.
Load Forecast HorizonsCAISO · 5-minute forecast	CAISO load forecasts for the system and TAC load areas. The RTM five-minute label is the rolling VSTLF forecast used for each real-time dispatch operating interval, not a day-ahead peak forecast. event_time is the delivery interval and source_time is the publication time. For an honest historical forecast comparison, select the last source_time at or before event_time; for a forward interval select the latest source_time available at the analysis cutoff. The public source is CAISO OASIS.
WEIM Area Demand ForecastsCAISO · hourly	CAISO's published demand forecasts for each WEIM balancing area outside CAISO's own TAC areas, keyed by ba and horizon (day_ahead, two_day, seven_day), latest vintage per hour. 4.4M rows, 30 areas, 2018-01 to a week ahead.