Five-Minute Demand Outlook

CAISO system demand, day-ahead and hour-ahead demand forecasts, and demand response from the live demand Outlook.

Load data CAISO market

Query with the agent

Native record

CAISO system x five-minute delivery x capture

5-minute publication cadence

Evidence

Mixed evidence

Multiple evidence types kept distinct in the contract

Time basis

Point-in-time records

UTC · event_time

Overview

Every capture is retained, with Pacific snapshot date and DST ambiguity flags.

Query contract

Preserve one canonical row per (event_time, snapshot_date, observed_at) before aggregating.

Analysis rules

Select the latest observed_at per delivery interval within the knowledge-time cutoff; never sum snapshots.
Exclude ambiguous_local_time rows when exact UTC alignment is required.

Interpretation

observed_at is capture time, not operator publication time. Historical snapshots can contain revisions and realized values; never backdate availability to snapshot_date midnight.
NULL values are unknown, not zero; MW is power, not interval energy.

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_5m/query

Schema10

Column

Type

event_timeDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

interval_endDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

snapshot_dateDate

observed_atDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

ambiguous_local_timeBool

demand_mwNullable(Float64)

day_ahead_forecast_mwNullable(Float64)

hour_ahead_forecast_mwNullable(Float64)

demand_response_mwNullable(Float64)

ingested_atDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

Sample data

event_time	interval_end	snapshot_date	observed_at	ambiguous_local_time	demand_mw	day_ahead_forecast_mw	hour_ahead_forecast_mw	demand_response_mw	ingested_at
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 06:08:09.589798	false	∅	31719	30250	∅	2026-10-05 06:08:09.732309
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 06:03:09.784499	false	∅	31719	30250	∅	2026-10-05 06:03:09.957579
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:58:09.157822	false	∅	31719	30255	∅	2026-10-05 05:58:09.347951
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:53:09.116386	false	∅	31719	30260	∅	2026-10-05 05:53:09.355148
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:48:09.146715	false	∅	31719	30260	∅	2026-10-05 05:48:09.371244
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:43:08.985026	false	∅	31719	30265	∅	2026-10-05 05:43:09.239596
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:38:09.247476	false	∅	31719	30213	∅	2026-10-05 05:38:09.504386
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:33:09.585617	false	∅	31719	30213	∅	2026-10-05 05:33:09.945712
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:28:10.009004	false	∅	31719	30217	∅	2026-10-05 05:28:10.213228
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:23:09.000022	false	∅	31719	30241	∅	2026-10-05 05:23:09.169294
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:18:09.665421	false	∅	31719	30241	∅	2026-10-05 05:18:09.902647
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:13:09.057632	false	∅	31719	30242	∅	2026-10-05 05:13:09.250249
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:08:09.876934	false	∅	31719	30335	∅	2026-10-05 05:08:10.016325
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 05:03:09.443280	false	∅	31719	30335	∅	2026-10-05 05:03:09.760423
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:58:11.135799	false	∅	31719	30337	∅	2026-10-05 04:58:11.323415
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:53:09.223314	false	∅	31719	30421	∅	2026-10-05 04:53:09.418942
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:48:09.935589	false	∅	31719	30421	∅	2026-10-05 04:48:10.350746
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:43:10.779799	false	∅	31719	30424	∅	2026-10-05 04:43:11.006200
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:38:09.877180	false	∅	31719	30533	∅	2026-10-05 04:38:10.072949
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:33:09.283851	false	∅	31719	30533	∅	2026-10-05 04:33:09.491302
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:28:09.214305	false	∅	31719	30534	∅	2026-10-05 04:28:09.416991
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:23:09.061186	false	∅	31719	30650	∅	2026-10-05 04:23:09.255899
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:18:09.419853	false	∅	31719	30650	∅	2026-10-05 04:18:09.687257
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:13:10.102833	false	∅	31719	30648	∅	2026-10-05 04:13:10.401750
2026-10-05 06:55:00.000000	2026-10-05 07:00:00.000000	2026-10-04	2026-10-05 04:08:09.786582	false	∅	31719	30744	∅	2026-10-05 04:08:10.055052

Coverage

100.0% complete0 gap days2 days with data

Show coverage history

Coverage: 100.0%Days with data: 2Gaps: 0

2026

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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 ActualsCAISO · hourly	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. 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.
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.