Know what your electricity really emits — every five minutes.
Real-time and historical grid carbon intensity for Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain. Licensed for commercial use, versioned for audit, priced for developers.
Live grid carbon intensity · updates every 5 minutes · full board →
Annual average factors hide the hours that matter.
South Australia's grid swings from under 50 to over 500 gCO₂/kWh in a single day as rooftop solar floods in and out. New Zealand's hydro-dominated grid looks clean on average — until dry-year thermal peakers switch on. An annual factor calls both of those "flat". If you schedule compute, charge fleets, report market-based emissions, or build carbon features into your product, the average is the wrong number. You need the curve.
Your first call, in about a minute.
curl "https://api.uncoveredcarbon.com/v1/emissions/live?location=NZ" \ -H "X-API-Key: uc_test_your_key"
One endpoint for now, one for history. JSON out. SDKs unnecessary.
{
"location": "NZ",
"carbon_intensity": 92.4,
"period_start": "2026-07-17T02:35:00Z",
"data_quality": "estimated",
"calculation_method": "computed-from-mix",
"status": "provisional",
"coverage_pct": 99.2,
"emission_factor_version": "MfE-2024/EA-GenMD-202606",
"methodology_version": "nz-rtd-v1"
}The highlighted fields are the point — most APIs stop at the first three lines.
Why teams pick Uncovered Carbon
Licensed for commercial use — actually.
Every region is served from permissively-licensed primary sources — AEMO, the Electricity Authority, NESO — with a documented evidence chain. The popular free Australian source is licensed non-commercial only. If grid data goes inside your product, licensing is the feature.
A number you can defend.
Every reading carries its methodology version, emission-factor vintage, settlement status and coverage. When an auditor asks where a number came from, you have an answer — down to the source file.
Granularity that matches reality.
5-minute dispatch data for Australia and New Zealand, half-hourly for Great Britain, with full history. Built for hourly matching, not annual averages.
Built for
Carbon-aware software
Shift batch jobs, EV charging and flexible load into the clean hours. One integer tells your scheduler when.
ESG & carbon-accounting platforms
AASB S2 made roughly 10,000 Australian entities report scope 2 with assurance — starting July 2026. Their software vendors need licensed, assurance-defensible AU grid data. That's what this is.
24/7 CFE & hourly matching
SBTi's Net-Zero Standard v2 phases in hourly matching. Granular intensity is the raw material — start building the capability now.
The data, specifically
| Region | Source | Native granularity | Method | Lifecycle |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AU — NSW, QLD, VIC, SA, TAS | AEMO NEMWeb dispatch × CDEII factors | 5 min | computed from mix | final on arrival |
| NZ | EA real-time dispatch + settlement CSVs | 5 min | computed from mix | provisional → final (settled) |
| GB | NESO Carbon Intensity API | 30 min | direct | provisional → final |
Honest limitations, stated up front: New Zealand live values are provisional until settlement data lands; Australian figures reflect grid dispatch only — rooftop solar behind the meter isn't visible to any dispatch feed. Details in the methodology.
Start free. Stay cheap. Scale when you do.
- 100k calls / month
- All regions — NZ, AU×5, GB
- Full history access
- Commercial use licensed
The nearest commercial alternative starts around €6,000 per year, per country. We are not that. Full pricing →
Start your 14-day trial