EIA Sources

EIA sources integrate the U.S. Energy Information Administration Hourly Electric Grid Monitor into a project, exposing grid-level electricity generation and carbon emissions data as points. This is regional grid data for a balancing authority — not data read from a device on the project network.

About the Data

The EIA’s Hourly Electric Grid Monitor publishes near-real-time operating data for the U.S. electric grid, collected hourly from each balancing authority. For a given balancing authority it reports:

Net generation broken out by energy source (coal, natural gas, nuclear, oil, solar, hydro, wind, and other).
Carbon dioxide emissions, both the mass of CO2 emitted (metric tons) and the emissions intensity of the electricity (lbs/kWh), derived from the generation mix and per-fuel emission factors.
Consumed electricity, calculated as total reported generation plus imports from neighboring balancing authorities minus exports to them.

This data is useful for carbon accounting, reporting the grid emissions intensity behind a project’s electricity use, and contextualizing on-site generation against the wider grid.

Balancing Authorities

A balancing authority (BA) is the entity responsible for keeping electricity supply and demand in balance across a defined portion of the grid in real time. It matches generation to load moment to moment and manages the interchange of power with neighboring balancing authorities. The continental U.S. is divided into roughly 60 balancing authorities — some are independent system operators covering whole regions (CISO, PJM, MISO, ERCO, ISNE), others are individual utilities (DUK, SOCO).

Each EIA source reports the data for a single balancing authority, so the balancing authority that serves a project’s location determines which grid mix and emissions figures the source reflects.

Data Sync

EIA data is published on an hourly cadence but on a delay. Novant synchronizes each EIA source once per day at 16:00 EST, backfilling the trend with the hours that have been published since the previous sync. EIA points are therefore historical — they are not a live, real-time feed, and the most recent hours of the current day will not yet be present.

Sources

The address format for EIA sources is eia:gm: followed by the lowercase balancing authority code:

eia:gm:<ba_code>

Examples:

eia:gm:ciso   # California ISO
eia:gm:pjm    # PJM Interconnection
eia:gm:miso   # Midcontinent ISO
eia:gm:erco   # ERCOT (Texas)
eia:gm:duk    # Duke Energy Carolinas

The full list of balancing authority codes is published in the EIA Grid Monitor.

Points

EIA sources only support read-only points. The point address is the value in the Address column below — for example ai.gen.coal.

Generation

Net generation reported by the balancing authority, by energy source.

Address	Point	Unit	Description
`ai.gen.coal`	Coal Generation	MWh	Coal generation
`ai.gen.gas`	Natural Gas Generation	MWh	Natural gas generation
`ai.gen.nuc`	Nuclear Generation	MWh	Nuclear generation
`ai.gen.oil`	Oil Generation	MWh	Petroleum generation
`ai.gen.solar`	Solar Generation	MWh	Solar generation
`ai.gen.hydro`	Hydroelectric Generation	MWh	Hydro generation
`ai.gen.wind`	Wind Generation	MWh	Wind generation
`ai.gen.other`	Other Generation	MWh	Other generation
`ai.gen.unknown`	Unknown Generation	MWh	Generation from an unknown source

CO2 Emissions

Mass of CO2 emissions associated with the balancing authority, in metric tons.

Address	Point	Unit	Description
`ai.co2.gen`	CO2 Emissions Generated	t	CO2 emissions generated from all sources
`ai.co2.con`	CO2 Emissions Consumed	t	CO2 emissions consumed by the balancing authority
`ai.co2.imp`	CO2 Emissions Imported	t	CO2 emissions imported
`ai.co2.exp`	CO2 Emissions Exported	t	CO2 emissions exported
`ai.co2.coal`	CO2 Emissions Coal	t	CO2 emissions from coal
`ai.co2.gas`	CO2 Emissions Natural Gas	t	CO2 emissions from natural gas
`ai.co2.oil`	CO2 Emissions Oil	t	CO2 emissions from petroleum
`ai.co2.other`	CO2 Emissions Other	t	CO2 emissions from sources other than coal, natural gas, and petroleum

CO2 Emission Factors

The CO2 emission factor selected for each fuel, in lbs/kWh.

Address	Point	Unit	Description
`ai.co2f.coal`	Coal CO2 Emissions Factor	lbs/kWh	Selected CO2 emission factor for coal
`ai.co2f.ng`	Natural Gas CO2 Emissions Factor	lbs/kWh	Selected CO2 emission factor for natural gas
`ai.co2f.oil`	Oil CO2 Emissions Factor	lbs/kWh	Selected CO2 emission factor for petroleum

CO2 Intensity

The carbon intensity of the electricity, in lbs/kWh.

Address	Point	Unit	Description
`ai.co2i.gen`	Generated Electricity CO2 Intensity	lbs/kWh	CO2 emission intensity of total generation
`ai.co2i.con`	Consumed Electricity CO2 Intensity	lbs/kWh	CO2 emission intensity of total consumption

Consumption

Address	Point	Unit	Description
`ai.pos.gen`	Positive Generation	MWh	Total reported generation across all energy sources
`ai.con.elec`	Consumed Electricity	MWh	Reported generation plus imports from neighboring balancing authorities minus exports to them