🔌 OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper

🚀 Collect US electricity utility rate structures from OpenEI. Get tiered pricing, time-of-use schedules, demand charges, fixed fees, and energy rate breakdowns for 150+ utilities covering 70% of US electricity load. Essential for solar ROI and EV charging analysis.

🕒 Last updated: 2026-04-23

Understanding electricity rate structures is critical for solar companies, energy consultants, battery storage firms, and real estate developers. The OpenEI database contains over 50,000 rate plans, but extracting structured data manually is impractical.

The OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper automates this process, pulling complete rate structures with tiered pricing, demand charges, and fixed fees. Whether you are calculating solar ROI, analyzing energy costs, or benchmarking utility rates, this tool delivers clean, analysis-ready data.

Target Audience	Solar installers, energy consultants, battery storage companies, real estate analysts
Primary Use Cases	Solar ROI calculation, tariff analysis, rate comparison, EV charging cost analysis

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📋 What Does It Do

This tool collects electricity rate structures from the OpenEI US Utility Rate Database. It delivers:

• ⚡ Rate structures - detailed energy rate tiers, time-of-use schedules, and pricing breakdowns
• 🏢 Utility information - utility names, EIA IDs, sectors (residential, commercial, industrial)
• 💰 Charge details - fixed charges, demand rates, demand units, and peak capacity limits
• 📅 Rate schedules - weekday and weekend energy and demand schedules
• 🔋 DG rules - distributed generation rules and net metering policies
• 📊 50,000+ rate plans - comprehensive coverage of US utilities

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🎬 How to Use the OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper - Full Demo

🚧 Demo video coming soon. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to get started in under 2 minutes.

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⚙️ Input

Configure how many utility rate records to collect.

Field	Type	Description
Max Items	Integer	Free users: Limited to 10 items. Paid users: up to 1,000,000

Example 1 - Collect 100 utility rates:

{
    "maxItems": 100
}

Example 2 - Collect all available rates:

{
    "maxItems": 50000
}

⚠️ Free users are limited to 10 items per run. Sign up for a paid plan to unlock up to 1,000,000 records.

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📊 Output

🧾 Output Schema

Field	Type	Description
label	string	Rate plan label/name
name	string	Rate plan name
utility	string	Utility company name
eiaid	integer	EIA utility identifier
sector	string	Customer sector (Residential, Commercial, Industrial)
approved	boolean	Whether the rate is approved
startdate	string	Rate effective start date
fixedchargefirstmeter	number	Fixed monthly charge for first meter
fixedchargeunits	string	Fixed charge units
energyratestructure	array	Tiered energy rate breakdown
demandratestructure	array	Demand charge rate tiers
demandrateunit	string	Unit for demand charges
peakkwcapacitymax	number	Maximum peak kW capacity
description	string	Rate plan description
sourceparent	string	Source URL for the rate
revisions	integer	Number of revisions
scrapedAt	string	Timestamp of data collection

📦 Sample Output

Sample 1 - Residential rate:

{
    "label": "Residential Service - Schedule R",
    "name": "Residential",
    "utility": "Pacific Gas & Electric Co",
    "eiaid": 14328,
    "sector": "Residential",
    "approved": true,
    "startdate": "2024-01-01T00:00:00.000Z",
    "sourceparent": "https://www.pge.com/tariffs",
    "fixedchargefirstmeter": 10.00,
    "fixedchargeunits": "$/month",
    "energyratestructure": [[{"rate": 0.25, "unit": "kWh"}]],
    "revisions": 3,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-04-09T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Sample 2 - Commercial rate:

{
    "label": "General Service - Schedule GS-2",
    "name": "General Service",
    "utility": "Southern California Edison",
    "eiaid": 17609,
    "sector": "Commercial",
    "approved": true,
    "startdate": "2024-03-01T00:00:00.000Z",
    "fixedchargefirstmeter": 25.00,
    "fixedchargeunits": "$/month",
    "energyratestructure": [[{"rate": 0.12, "unit": "kWh"}, {"rate": 0.18, "unit": "kWh"}]],
    "demandratestructure": [[{"rate": 8.50, "unit": "kW"}]],
    "demandrateunit": "kW",
    "revisions": 5,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-04-09T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Sample 3 - Industrial rate:

{
    "label": "Large General Service - Schedule LGS",
    "name": "Large General Service",
    "utility": "Duke Energy Carolinas",
    "eiaid": 5416,
    "sector": "Industrial",
    "approved": true,
    "startdate": "2023-09-01T00:00:00.000Z",
    "fixedchargefirstmeter": 75.00,
    "fixedchargeunits": "$/month",
    "energyratestructure": [[{"rate": 0.065, "unit": "kWh"}]],
    "demandratestructure": [[{"rate": 12.00, "unit": "kW"}]],
    "peakkwcapacitymax": 1000,
    "revisions": 2,
    "scrapedAt": "2026-04-09T12:00:00.000Z"
}

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✨ Why Choose the OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper?

Advantage	Details
⚡ 50,000+ rate plans	The most comprehensive US utility rate database
🏢 All sectors	Residential, commercial, and industrial rates
💰 Full rate details	Tiered pricing, demand charges, fixed fees
📅 Time-of-use schedules	Weekday and weekend energy schedules
🔋 DG rules	Distributed generation and net metering policies
📊 Structured output	JSON, CSV, or Excel for easy analysis
⏰ Monthly monitoring	Track rate changes automatically

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📈 How Does It Compare?

Feature	Our Tool	Manual OpenEI Browsing
Batch collection	Up to 1M records	One rate at a time
All utilities	Every US utility	Search one by one
Rate structures	Full tiered breakdowns	Click into each rate
Structured output	JSON, CSV, Excel	Web pages only
Automated scheduling	Monthly monitoring	Manual visits
Nationwide coverage	50,000+ rate plans	Paginated search

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🚀 How to Use

1. Sign Up - Create a free account w/ $5 credit (takes 2 minutes)
2. Find the Tool - Search for "OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper" in the Apify Store
3. Set Input - Set how many utility rate records to collect
4. Run It - Click "Start" and get structured rate data in seconds
5. Download Data - Export results as CSV, Excel, or JSON from the Dataset tab

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💼 Business Use Cases

Solar Companies:

• Compare utility rates to identify the best markets for solar
• Calculate solar ROI based on current rate structures

Energy Consultants:

• Analyze tariff plans to recommend optimal rates for clients
• Benchmark rates across utilities and regions

Battery Storage Companies:

• Identify high demand-charge markets for energy storage
• Model storage economics based on rate structures

Real Estate Developers:

• Evaluate electricity costs across markets for site selection
• Forecast operating expenses based on utility rates

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✨ Why choose this Actor

	Capability
🎯	Built for the job. Scoped specifically to this data source so you skip the parser engineering entirely.
🔖	Structured output. Clean, typed fields ready for analysis, dashboards, or downstream pipelines.
⚡	Fast. Optimized request patterns return results in seconds, not minutes.
🔁	Always fresh. Every run pulls live data, so the dataset reflects the source as of run time.
🌐	No infra to manage. Apify handles proxies, retries, scaling, scheduling, and storage.
🛡️	Reliable. Battle-tested across many runs and edge cases, with graceful error handling.
🚫	No code required. Configure in the UI, run from CLI, schedule via cron, or call from any language with the Apify SDK.

📊 Production-grade structured data without the engineering overhead of building and maintaining your own scraper.

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📈 How it compares to alternatives

Approach	Cost	Coverage	Refresh	Filters	Setup
⭐ OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper (this Actor)	$5 free credit, then pay-per-use	Full source coverage	Live per run	Source-native filters supported	⚡ 2 min
Build your own scraper	Engineering hours	Full once built	Whenever you maintain it	Custom code	🐢 Days to weeks
Paid managed APIs	$$$ monthly	Vendor-defined	Live	Vendor-defined	⏳ Hours
Third-party data dumps	Varies	Subset, often stale	Periodic	None	🕒 Variable

Pick this Actor when you want broad coverage, server-side filtering, and no pipeline maintenance.

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🚀 How to use

1. 📝 Sign up. Create a free account with $5 credit (takes 2 minutes).
2. 🌐 Open the Actor. Go to the OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper page on the Apify Store.
3. 🎯 Set input. Configure the input fields in the form (or paste a JSON), then set maxItems.
4. 🚀 Run it. Click Start and let the Actor collect your data.
5. 📥 Download. Grab your results in the Dataset tab as CSV, Excel, JSON, or XML.

⏱️ Total time from signup to downloaded dataset: 3-5 minutes. No coding required.

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💼 Business use cases

📊 Data & Analytics Build trend reports and dashboards from live source data Feed BI tools, warehouses, and ML pipelines with structured records Run periodic snapshots to track changes over time Compare segments, regions, or categories with consistent fields	🏢 Operations & Strategy Monitor competitor moves, pricing, and inventory shifts Build internal directories and lookup tools backed by current data Power workflows that depend on fresh source records Cut manual data-gathering time from hours to minutes
🎯 Marketing & Growth Identify market opportunities and trending topics Research target audiences and customer personas at scale Power lead-generation pipelines with verified records Track sentiment, reviews, or social signals over time	🛠️ Engineering & Product Prototype features that need real-world data without owning a crawler Replace fragile in-house scrapers with a managed Actor Wire datasets into your apps via the Apify API or webhooks Skip the proxy, retry, and parsing maintenance entirely

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🌟 Beyond business use cases

Data like this powers more than commercial workflows. The same structured records support research, education, civic projects, and personal initiatives.

🎓 Research and academia Empirical datasets for papers, thesis work, and coursework Longitudinal studies tracking changes across snapshots Reproducible research with cited, versioned data pulls Classroom exercises on data analysis and ethical scraping	🎨 Personal and creative Side projects, portfolio demos, and indie app launches Data visualizations, dashboards, and infographics Content research for bloggers, YouTubers, and podcasters Hobbyist collections and personal trackers
🤝 Non-profit and civic Transparency reporting and accountability projects Advocacy campaigns backed by public-interest data Community-run databases for local issues Investigative journalism on public records	🧪 Experimentation Prototype AI and machine-learning pipelines with real data Validate product-market hypotheses before engineering spend Train small domain-specific models on niche corpora Test dashboard concepts with live input

🤖 Ask an AI assistant about this scraper

Open a ready-to-send prompt about this ParseForge actor in the AI of your choice:

• 💬 ChatGPT
• 🧠 Claude
• 🔍 Perplexity
• 🅒 Copilot

❓ Frequently Asked Questions

💳 Do I need a paid Apify plan to run this actor?

No. You can start right now on the free Apify plan, which includes $5 in free monthly credit. That is enough to run this actor several times and explore the output before committing to anything. Paid plans unlock higher limits, more concurrent runs, and larger datasets. Create a free Apify account here to get started.

🚨 What happens if my run fails or returns no results?

Failed runs are not charged. If the source site changes, proxies get rate-limited, or a specific input matches nothing, re-run the actor or open our contact form and we will investigate. You can also check the run log in the Apify console to see why the run stopped.

📏 How many items can I scrape per run?

Free users are limited to 10 items per run so you can preview the output and confirm the actor works for your use case. Paid users can raise maxItems up to 1,000,000 per run. Upgrade here if you need full scale.

🕒 How fresh is the data?

Every run fetches live data at the moment of execution. There is no cache or delay: the records you get reflect what the source returned at that moment. Schedule the actor to maintain a rolling snapshot of the data you need.

🧑‍💻 Can I call this actor from my own code?

Yes. Apify exposes every actor as a REST endpoint and ships first-class SDKs for Node.js and Python. You can start a run, read the dataset, and handle webhooks from your own app in a few lines. All you need is your Apify API token.

📤 How do I export the data?

Every Apify dataset can be downloaded in one click from the console as CSV, JSON, JSONL, Excel, HTML, XML, or RSS. You can also pull results programmatically via the Apify API or stream them into BigQuery, S3, and other destinations through built-in integrations.

📅 Can I schedule the actor to run automatically?

Yes. Use the Apify scheduler to run the actor on any cadence, from hourly to monthly. Results are saved to your dataset and can be delivered to webhooks, email, Slack, cloud storage, or automation tools such as Zapier and Make.

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🔌 Automating Your Utility Rate Data Collection

Schedule monthly runs to monitor rate changes and new tariff publications. Use the Apify scheduler and push results to your analysis tools or spreadsheets.

🔌 Integrate OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper with Any App

Connect your utility rate data to thousands of apps using these integrations:

• Make - Automate rate monitoring workflows
• Zapier - Get alerts on rate changes
• Slack - Get notified in your channel
• Google Drive - Export to spreadsheets
• Airbyte - Sync to your data warehouse
• Webhooks - Trigger actions when runs complete

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🔌 Integrate with any app

OpenEI Utility Rates Scraper connects to any cloud service via Apify integrations:

• Make - Automate multi-step workflows
• Zapier - Connect with 5,000+ apps
• Slack - Get run notifications in your channels
• Airbyte - Pipe results into your warehouse
• GitHub - Trigger runs from commits and releases
• Google Drive - Export datasets straight to Sheets

You can also use webhooks to trigger downstream actions when a run finishes. Push fresh data into your product backend, or alert your team in Slack.

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Pro Tip: 💡 Browse the full ParseForge catalog to find more data tools.

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🆘 Need Help?

• Check the FAQ section above for common questions
• Visit the Apify documentation for platform guides
• Contact us at Tally contact form

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⚠️ Disclaimer: This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to OpenEI, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the U.S. Department of Energy, or any government agency. It accesses only publicly available data.