name: Energy and Utilities Vocabulary description: >- Domain vocabulary for the energy-utilities topic profile. Defines the core terms used across utility data integration APIs, ISO/RTO market APIs, federal energy data APIs, renewable research APIs, weather APIs, EV charging interoperability protocols, demand-response standards, and the Green Button family of consumer energy data specs. Tags align with the apis.yml and JSON-LD context used by this repo. url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/energy-utilities/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/energy-utilities-vocabulary.yml created: '2026-05-23' modified: '2026-05-23' namespaces: - prefix: eu uri: https://apievangelist.com/topics/energy-utilities/ns/ - prefix: espi uri: http://naesb.org/espi# - prefix: qudt uri: http://qudt.org/schema/qudt/ - prefix: schema uri: https://schema.org/ terms: - term: UsagePoint description: >- A service delivery point at which a utility delivers commodity service (electricity, gas, water, steam) to a customer. Parent record for MeterReading observations. Aligned with the Green Button ESPI UsagePoint resource. aliases: [ServiceDeliveryPoint, SDP, ServicePoint, Premise] - term: MeterReading description: >- A single point-in-time or interval measurement captured by a utility meter for a UsagePoint. Carries a value, unit, interval, and semantic readingType. aliases: [IntervalReading, Reading, Measurement] - term: ReadingType description: >- The semantic classification of what a meter measured — combination of commodity, flow direction (delivered / received), and measurement kind (energy / demand / reactive). Mirrors ESPI ReadingType. examples: [electricity.usage, electricity.demand, electricity.net, natural-gas.usage] - term: IntervalBlock description: >- A group of contiguous IntervalReadings covering a defined time window. ESPI structures meter data as IntervalBlock -> IntervalReading. - term: EnergyDataPoint description: >- Generalized observation envelope used across the catalog — covers meter intervals, ISO market prices, EIA time series, NREL solar irradiance, weather drivers, EV-charging telemetry, and DERMS device telemetry. - term: AMI description: >- Advanced Metering Infrastructure — two-way communicating smart meter deployment that produces sub-hourly interval data. aliases: [Smart Meter, Advanced Metering Infrastructure] - term: AMR description: >- Automated Meter Reading — one-way meter data collection that pre-dated AMI. Typically produces monthly reads, no intervals. - term: GreenButton description: >- Consumer energy data standard governed by the Green Button Alliance. Includes Download My Data (DMD), Connect My Data (CMD), and the underlying ESPI REST/Atom protocol. aliases: [Green Button, ESPI, CDS, Connect My Data, Download My Data] - term: ESPI description: >- Energy Services Provider Interface — the NAESB technical standard underlying Green Button. Defines UsagePoint, MeterReading, IntervalBlock, ReadingType, and the OAuth2 authorization flow. - term: CDS description: >- Consumer Data Specification — the Green Button Alliance working group's next-generation profile for consumer energy data sharing. - term: OpenADR description: >- Open Automated Demand Response — open, two-way information exchange model and Smart Grid standard for automating demand response events and orchestrating distributed energy resources. OpenADR 3.0 is the current generation. - term: DemandResponse description: >- Programs in which retail customers reduce or shift electricity consumption in response to a signal from a utility, aggregator, or grid operator — usually compensated. aliases: [DR, Demand Response] - term: DER description: >- Distributed Energy Resource — any generation, storage, or controllable load asset located on the distribution network or behind the customer meter (rooftop solar, behind-the-meter battery, EV charger, controllable load). aliases: [Distributed Energy Resource] - term: DERMS description: >- Distributed Energy Resource Management System — software platform that aggregates, monitors, dispatches, and optimizes DERs. Often wraps OpenADR for signaling and IEEE 2030.5 for device control. - term: VPP description: >- Virtual Power Plant — an aggregation of DERs operated as a single dispatchable resource in a wholesale or capacity market. - term: OCPP description: >- Open Charge Point Protocol — open communication protocol between EV charging stations and charging management systems, published by the Open Charge Alliance. OCPP 2.1 is the current version. - term: OCPI description: >- Open Charge Point Interface — back-office-to-back-office interoperability protocol enabling roaming between Charge Point Operators and e-Mobility Service Providers. Latest spec OCPI 2.3. - term: ISO15118 description: >- ISO 15118 — vehicle-to-charger plug-and-charge and bidirectional power transfer standard. ISO 15118-20 enables AC and DC V2X. - term: ISO_RTO description: >- Independent System Operator / Regional Transmission Organization — entities that operate the wholesale electricity market and transmission grid across a region (CAISO, ERCOT, PJM, MISO, ISO-NE, NYISO, SPP). aliases: [ISO/RTO, Grid Operator] - term: LMP description: >- Locational Marginal Price — the marginal cost of supplying the next megawatt-hour of electricity at a specific pricing node in an ISO/RTO wholesale market. aliases: [Locational Marginal Price, Nodal Price] - term: BalancingAuthority description: >- NERC-registered entity responsible for balancing electricity supply and demand within its area. Identified by a short code (e.g., CISO, ERCO, PJM, MISO, NYIS). - term: AncillaryServices description: >- Wholesale market products that maintain grid reliability — regulation, spinning reserve, non-spinning reserve, replacement reserve, voltage support, black start. - term: CapacityMarket description: >- Forward market for resource adequacy commitments in regions that run one (PJM, ISO-NE, NYISO, MISO). - term: Tariff description: >- The rate plan under which a UsagePoint is billed by its utility. Types include flat, tiered, time-of-use, real-time, demand, and net-metering. - term: TOU description: >- Time-of-Use — tariff in which price varies by time of day, day of week, and season. - term: NetMetering description: >- Billing arrangement in which a customer with on-site generation receives credit for energy exported to the grid, netted against energy imported. - term: SolarIrradiance description: >- Solar power per unit area incident on a surface. Includes GHI (global horizontal), DNI (direct normal), DHI (diffuse horizontal). Drives PV generation forecasts. - term: NSRDB description: >- National Solar Radiation Database — NREL-maintained solar irradiance dataset and API. - term: PVWatts description: >- NREL API that estimates the energy production of a grid-connected photovoltaic system based on location and system parameters. - term: URDB description: >- Utility Rate Database — NREL-maintained dataset of US utility rate tariffs, exposed via the NREL developer API. - term: EIA description: >- U.S. Energy Information Administration — federal statistical agency that publishes electricity, natural gas, petroleum, coal, and nuclear data through the EIA Open Data API (APIv2). - term: NREL description: >- National Renewable Energy Laboratory — DOE national lab that operates the developer.nrel.gov API network. - term: NWS description: >- National Weather Service — NOAA agency whose api.weather.gov delivers free, no-auth GeoJSON forecasts, gridpoints, alerts, and observations used widely in grid demand modelling.