specification: API Commons Rate Limits
specificationVersion: '0.1'
schema: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/interface-research/main/schema/api-commons.yml#/$defs/RateLimits
provider: Electricity Maps
providerId: electricitymaps
created: '2026-06-21'
modified: '2026-06-21'
reconciled: false
tags:
- Energy
- Carbon Intensity
- Electricity
- Grid
- Sustainability
- Rate Limiting
- Quotas
- Throttling
description: >-
  The Electricity Maps API applies per-token access controls and usage limits
  that vary by plan. The free personal tier is restricted in the set of zones and
  endpoints it can call, and commercial entitlements are scoped to the licensed
  signals and zones. Per-token request-rate and quota values are not published as
  fixed numbers and are not reconciled in this artifact.
notes: >-
  Verify current per-token request rates, zone access, and quotas on the
  Electricity Maps API portal at reconciliation; access scope is determined by the
  signals and zones licensed for the key.
sources:
- https://portal.electricitymaps.com/docs/api
- https://help.electricitymaps.com/en/articles/13168690-understanding-and-using-the-electricity-maps-api
- https://www.electricitymaps.com/pricing
responseCodes:
  throttled: 429
limits:
- name: Requests
  scope: token
  metric: requests
  limit: see provider documentation
  notes: Per-token request rate varies by plan; not published as a fixed value.
- name: Zone Access
  scope: token
  metric: zones
  limit: plan-dependent
  notes: Free tier is limited to a subset of zones; commercial tokens are scoped to licensed zones.
- name: Endpoint Access
  scope: token
  metric: endpoints
  limit: plan-dependent
  notes: Accessible endpoints per zone are returned by the /zones endpoint for the caller's token.
- name: History Window
  scope: token
  metric: days
  limit: plan-dependent
  notes: Trailing history (e.g. 3 months on commercial signals) is bounded by plan; extended history is custom.
- name: Forecast Horizon
  scope: token
  metric: hours
  limit: 24-72
  notes: Forecast horizon (24-72 hours) depends on the licensed plan.
- name: Unauthenticated Endpoints
  scope: public
  metric: endpoints
  limit: zones, health
  notes: The /zones and /health endpoints can be requested without an API key.
policies:
- name: Tiered Access
  description: Zone, endpoint, history, and forecast access scale with the free, trial, commercial, and enterprise plans.
- name: Backoff Strategy
  description: Clients should implement exponential backoff with jitter and honor Retry-After on HTTP 429.
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com