# Essential Energy

> Essential Energy is a New South Wales Government-owned statutory corporation and the distribution network service provider (DNSP) for 95 per cent of the geographic area of NSW plus parts of southern Queensland — poles, wires, substations and streetlights, not retail energy contracts. It publishes NO consumer data API, NO developer portal and NO OpenAPI. It DOES publish a genuinely open, anonymous, key-free grid-data surface: 100 ArcGIS REST FeatureServers covering network assets, DER hosting capacity, regulated network planning forecasts and EV charging siting analysis.

Generated by API Evangelist from the Essential Energy provider repo. Everything below was verified live on 2026-07-27; nothing is inferred from marketing copy.

## What you can actually call

- Base URL: https://services-ap1.arcgis.com/3o0vFs4fJRsuYuBO/arcgis/rest/services
- Authentication: NONE. Anonymous HTTPS GET. No key, no signup, no OAuth, no accreditation.
- Interface: Esri ArcGIS REST API, currentVersion 12. Operations are path segments (`/query`), not HTTP verbs.
- Format: `f=json` (Esri JSON) or `f=geojson` (RFC 7946). Format is a query parameter, not an Accept header.
- Errors: returned with **HTTP 200** and an `{"error":{"code","message","details"}}` body. Parse the body; never branch on status alone.
- Paging: `resultOffset` + `resultRecordCount`; `exceededTransferLimit: true` means there is more. `maxRecordCount` is 2000 on asset services, 1000 on the planning tables.
- Read-only: 97 of 100 services advertise `Query` or `Query,Extract`. `/applyEdits` returns "This operation is not supported."

## Service catalog

- [ArcGIS REST services directory (100 FeatureServers)](https://services-ap1.arcgis.com/3o0vFs4fJRsuYuBO/arcgis/rest/services?f=json): the authoritative list of every published service.
- [Platform info + auth advertisement](https://services-ap1.arcgis.com/3o0vFs4fJRsuYuBO/arcgis/rest/info?f=json): currentVersion, token service (platform only).
- [ArcGIS Online organisation descriptor](https://essentialenergy.maps.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/portals/self?f=json): org id 3o0vFs4fJRsuYuBO, access public.
- [Public item catalogue (184 items)](https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/search?q=orgid:3o0vFs4fJRsuYuBO&f=json&num=100): maps, dashboards and apps as well as services.

## The three API groupings

- Network Asset Feature Services — poles (timber/concrete/metal/composite), spans, cables, transformers, substations (144,569 of them), zone substation sites, streetlights, service points, switchgear, fuses, reclosers, pillars, pits, towers, cross-arms, third-party attachments, service-area boundaries. Portal: https://essentialenergy.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=947af3fb3749427e97a4824dcbd49980
- Hosting Capacity Feature Services — DER generation (GEN) and load (LOAD) hosting capacity per substation, plus 1km/5km/15km hexbin aggregations and spare-capacity service areas. Portal: https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/9e19707948544a3285a3631d0ed576f8
- Network Planning / DAPR Feature Services — zone substation summer and winter ratings and 5-year forecasts, transmission line loading, distribution feeder forecasts, EV charging POIs and suitable pole clusters. Human-readable DAPR: https://dapr.essentialenergy.com.au/

## Worked examples

- Count substations: `/Substation/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&returnCountOnly=true&f=json` → `{"count":144569,...}`
- DER generation headroom: `/HostingCapacity_Substation_GEN/FeatureServer/1/query?where=1%3D1&outFields=*&resultRecordCount=2&f=json` (note: layer id **1**, not 0)
- Zone substation forecast: `/DAPR_ZS_Summer_v2/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&outFields=*&returnGeometry=false&f=json`
- Service areas as GeoJSON: `/EE_Service_Areas/FeatureServer/0/query?where=1%3D1&outFields=area_name,code,coverage&returnGeometry=false&f=geojson`

## Repo artifacts (raw)

- [apis.yml](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/apis.yml)
- [API conventions](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/conventions/essential-energy-conventions.yml)
- [Error catalogue](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/errors/essential-energy-problem-types.yml)
- [Authentication profile](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/authentication/essential-energy-authentication.yml)
- [Data model](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/data-model/essential-energy-data-model.yml)
- [Data dictionary (160 terms)](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/essential-energy-vocabulary.yml)
- [Worked examples](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/examples/essential-energy-examples.yml)
- [Conformance](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/conformance/essential-energy-conformance.yml)
- [Lifecycle](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/lifecycle/essential-energy-lifecycle.yml)
- [Agentic access recommendations](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/agentic-access/essential-energy-agentic-access.yml)
- [Agent skills](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/skills/_index.yml)
- [Harvested layer field schemas](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/essential-energy/refs/heads/main/arcgis/essential-energy-layer-field-schemas.json)

## Company

- [Website](https://www.essentialenergy.com.au/) (returns 403 to automated clients — Cloudflare bot management)
- [Network data access](https://engage.essentialenergy.com.au/access-to-network-data)
- [Vulnerability disclosure policy](https://www.essentialenergy.com.au/about-us/corporate-governance/vulnerability-disclosure-policy)
- [Privacy](https://www.essentialenergy.com.au/privacy) · [Terms of use](https://www.essentialenergy.com.au/termsofuse)
- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/essential-energy)

## What does NOT exist

Do not look for these; they were probed and are absent as of 2026-07-27.

- No OpenAPI, Swagger, AsyncAPI, GraphQL schema, gRPC/proto or Postman collection.
- No developer portal. developer., developers., api., docs., data. and opendata..essentialenergy.com.au all return NXDOMAIN.
- No OGC API - Features (probed; returns the Esri "Invalid URL" error), therefore no standards-based OpenAPI either.
- No SDK, CLI, MCP server or embedded component library.
- No changelog, roadmap, SLA, status page, deprecation policy or sandbox.
- No `/.well-known/` document on any host; no security.txt, no llms.txt (this file is generated, not published by Essential Energy).
- No customer data API. Essential Energy is a distributor, not a retailer, and is absent from the Australian CDR energy data-holder register (verified against https://api.cdr.gov.au/cdr-register/v1/energy/data-holders/brands/summary — 84 brands, zero matches for "essential"). No NMI, account, consumption, billing or consent surface exists.