aeso-mcp

Agent-native, strongly typed access and analytics for Alberta's electricity market using official AESO data.

Independent open-source project. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO).

What it is

aeso-mcp is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that exposes Alberta electricity-market observations and deterministic analytics to AI clients. It is designed for energy analysts, researchers, developers, journalists, market participants, and AI agents that need reliable, structured AESO data—not a thin REST decorator layer.

Features

Typed MCP tools with Pydantic inputs/outputs and structured results
Current market snapshot combining price, load, generation, interchange, and reserves
Paginated historical Pool Price, System Marginal Price, load, and generation retrieval
Official individual-asset Historical CSD Generation Data at hourly and five-minute resolution
Optional incremental DuckDB index and partitioned Parquet snapshots for repeatable research
Official AIL, Pool Price, wind, solar, and combined wind/solar forecast publications through one typed get_forecast contract, with persisted publication vintages and point-in-time as_of selection that excludes unknown publication chronology
Official supply-adequacy, supply-surplus, FFR Net Schedule, Dispatch Down Service, TMR reference-price, and AIES system-event reports
Official historical adequacy/cushion web codes, transmission outages, planning-area hourly load/generation, constrained volume, EEA events, operating-reserve directives, and the current Pool Participant registry through one typed research-archive contract
Authenticated APIM reports for merit order, commitments, capability/outages, interties, metered volumes, and operating-reserve offer control
Deterministic analytics: compact history summaries, period comparison, event detection, condition evidence, price distributions, capture price, net load, supply stack, generation, outage association, generalized forecast accuracy, asset gross energy revenue, CSD-versus- metered comparisons, ramps, supply-surplus associations, and transparent supply-tightness indicators, plus participant concentration, regional, constrained-volume, scarcity, and compact system-frequency analysis
Deterministic research manifests identify exact input publications, parameters, methodology, completeness, and degradation warnings for multi-source market-event analysis
Public operating-reserve active/standby prices, seven-day forecasts, activations, and summaries
One complete server package and startup path: AESO_API_KEY is always required; there is no reduced credential-free server mode
Query bounds, cache provenance, completeness metadata, upstream Retry-After handling, and secret-safe machine-readable errors
Hardened HTTP transport with Host/Origin validation, bearer authentication required for non-loopback binds by default, rate/concurrency limits, request-size bounds, probes, and correlation IDs
Reusable MCP prompts plus glossary, capability, dataset, and methodology resources

Implemented datasets

Dataset	Tool	Notes
Market snapshot	`get_market_snapshot`	Current cohesive view
Pool Price	`get_pool_prices`	Hourly CAD/MWh
System Marginal Price	`get_system_marginal_prices`	Minute-level CAD/MWh
Alberta Internal Load	`get_load`	MW; optional forecast
Generation / fuel mix	`get_generation`	Current all fuels; historical wind/solar
Interchange	`get_interchange`	Current path flows MW
Operating reserves	`get_reserves`	Current MW indicators
Generator outages	`get_outages`	Hourly outage capacity by fuel/technology
AIES capacity/outages	`get_generation_capacity`	Hourly MC, AC, operating, and mothball outage MW
Load outage forecast	`get_load_outage_forecast`	Hourly forecast MW
Energy Merit Order	`get_energy_merit_order`	Historical blocks; 60-day publication delay
Unit commitments	`get_unit_commitments`	Generating-unit commitment directives
Intertie capability	`get_intertie_capability`	Import/export ATC, TTC, margins, gross offers
Intertie capability outages	`get_intertie_outages`	Outages affecting interties/flowgates
Metered volumes	`get_metered_volumes`	Hourly MWh by asset; optional ID filters
OR offer control	`get_operating_reserve_offer_control`	Historical reserve offer blocks; 60-day delay
Approved Tx outages	`get_approved_transmission_outages`	AESO-approved planned transmission outages
Long-range Tx outages	`get_long_range_transmission_outages`	Tentative ~24-month significant outages
MCSINR	`get_monthly_cumulative_net_revenue`	Cumulative net revenue vs offer-cap trigger
Secondary offer limit	`get_secondary_offer_price_limit`	Whether secondary offer cap is in effect
Assets	`get_assets`	Registry with filters
Historical CSD generation	`get_historical_generation`	Individual assets; hourly / five-minute operational MW
Official forecasts	`get_forecast`	AIL / Pool Price / wind / solar; source-specific horizons and cadence
Official research archive	`get_research_data`	Historical adequacy/cushion, transmission, planning-area, constraint, EEA, OR-directive, and current participant records
Supply adequacy / cushion	`get_supply_adequacy`	Official hourly categorical status bands
Supply surplus	`get_supply_surplus`	Official hourly zero-price forecast status
FFR Net Schedule	`get_ffr_net_schedule`	Hourly scheduled imports (negative) / exports (positive) MW
Dispatch Down Service	`get_dispatch_down_service`	Published DDS availability MW
TMR reference price	`get_tmr_reference_price`	Published CAD/MWh value by effective date
AIES system events	`get_system_events`	Bounded event-log comments; no inferred event end
UC settlement summary	`get_uc_settlement_summary`	Hourly CAD amount and charged MW
OR prices	`get_operating_reserve_prices`	Active and standby price components and volumes
OR forecast	`get_operating_reserve_forecast`	Current seven-day hourly MW forecast
OR activations	`get_operating_reserve_activations`	Hourly standby volume and activation price

Analytics: summarize_market_history, assess_supply_tightness, compare_market_periods, find_price_events, explain_market_conditions, compare_forecast_to_actual, get_price_statistics, get_price_duration_curve, analyze_market_event, calculate_capture_prices, analyze_net_load, analyze_supply_stack, analyze_intertie_utilization, analyze_generation_mix, analyze_asset_dispatch, analyze_outage_impact, analyze_forecast_error, calculate_asset_energy_revenue, compare_csd_to_metered, analyze_ramps, analyze_supply_surplus_events, summarize_operating_reserve_market, analyze_participant_concentration, analyze_regional_load_generation, analyze_constrained_volume, analyze_scarcity, and analyze_system_frequency.

Architecture

The documentation site includes a full architecture and MCP Inspector walkthrough.

text

MCP clients
    |
    v
FastMCP adapter (aeso_mcp/mcp)
    |
    v
Domain services (market, grid, history, forecasts, reports, research, reserves, operations)
    |
    +---------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
    |               |                |                |
    v               v                v                v
GridStatus     Direct APIM     Public reports    CSD archive
    |               |           (ets.aeso.ca)      (Box)
    +-------+-------+
            |
            v
      AESO APIM gateway

Domain code does not depend on FastMCP. Framework changes should stay in aeso_mcp/mcp/. All upstream clients are implementation details of this single server: the APIM key is sent only to apimgw.aeso.ca and is never sent to the allow-listed ETS or Box hosts.

Requirements

Python 3.13+
AESO APIM API key from developer-apim.aeso.ca
uv recommended

Installation

See LIMITATIONS.md for an honest gap inventory.

From PyPI (recommended)

server.ts

export AESO_API_KEY=your-key
uvx aeso-mcp

For incremental DuckDB/Parquet historical storage:

bash

uvx --from 'aeso-mcp[analytics]' aeso-mcp

From GitHub

To run the current repository version directly:

server.ts

export AESO_API_KEY=your-key
uvx --from git+https://github.com/bchoi-qwe/aeso-mcp.git aeso-mcp

Development

bash

git clone https://github.com/bchoi-qwe/aeso-mcp.git
cd aeso-mcp
uv sync --group dev
cp .env.example .env   # set AESO_API_KEY
uv run aeso-mcp

Docker

Terminal

docker build -t aeso-mcp .
docker run --rm \
  -e AESO_API_KEY=your-key \
  -e AESO_MCP_HTTP_BEARER_TOKEN=replace-with-a-long-random-token \
  -p 8000:8000 \
  aeso-mcp

Send the same token in the MCP client's Authorization: Bearer ... header. The image binds to 0.0.0.0, so it intentionally requires bearer authentication by default.

Obtaining an AESO API key

Register at the AESO developer portal
Subscribe to the AESO public API product
Copy the primary/secondary subscription key
Set AESO_API_KEY in your environment (never commit it)

Missing credentials produce an actionable startup error. The key is never returned through MCP tools or logged.

Example MCP client configuration

See the documentation site's MCP client configurations for maintained Codex, ChatGPT desktop app, Claude Desktop, Claude Code, and Cursor setup instructions.

Cursor / Claude Desktop style (stdio)

config.json

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "aeso": {
      "command": "uvx",
      "args": ["aeso-mcp"],
      "env": {
        "AESO_API_KEY": "your-key"
      }
    }
  }
}

HTTP transport

bash

uv run aeso-mcp --transport http --host 127.0.0.1 --port 8000

HTTP always validates Host and Origin. A non-loopback bind now refuses to start unless AESO_MCP_HTTP_BEARER_TOKEN is configured. An explicit AESO_MCP_HTTP_ALLOW_INSECURE_REMOTE=true override exists for isolated environments that accept the risk; it is never the default. Also set AESO_MCP_HTTP_ALLOWED_HOSTS and AESO_MCP_HTTP_ALLOWED_ORIGINS for the deployment. /healthz and /readyz contain no market data or secrets. See .env.example for all bounded runtime settings.

Example prompts

What is Alberta's current grid situation?
What is the current pool price?
Show Alberta pool prices over the last 24 hours.
Compare today's pool prices with yesterday's.
Which hours had the highest prices this week?
How much wind and solar are producing right now?
What happened during the largest price spike this week?
How inaccurate was the seven-day wind forecast during that event?
Was AESO publishing a supply-surplus or tight supply-cushion status at the time?
What gross Pool Price energy revenue did this asset's metered MWh earn?
Explain the evidence associated with today's price increase.

Tools

Tool	Purpose
`get_market_snapshot`	Current market overview
`get_pool_prices`	Hourly Pool Price history
`get_system_marginal_prices`	Minute-level SMP history
`get_load`	Alberta Internal Load
`get_generation`	Fuel mix / renewable history
`get_interchange`	Intertie flows
`get_reserves`	Operating reserve indicators
`get_outages`	Hourly generator outage capacity by fuel
`get_generation_capacity`	AIES capability and outage grouping by fuel
`get_load_outage_forecast`	Hourly load-outage forecast
`get_energy_merit_order`	Historical energy merit-order blocks
`get_unit_commitments`	Generating-unit commitment directives
`get_intertie_capability`	Intertie/flowgate ATC, TTC, and margins
`get_intertie_outages`	Outages affecting intertie capability
`get_metered_volumes`	Metered energy by asset
`get_operating_reserve_offer_control`	Historical reserve offer-control blocks
`get_approved_transmission_outages`	Approved planned transmission outages
`get_long_range_transmission_outages`	Tentative long-range transmission outages
`get_assets`	Asset registry
`get_monthly_cumulative_net_revenue`	Current MCSINR publication
`get_secondary_offer_price_limit`	Current secondary offer-cap status
`compare_market_periods`	Aggregate period comparison
`find_price_events`	High-price event detection
`explain_market_conditions`	Structured evidence (not causal prose)
`compare_forecast_to_actual`	AIL forecast vs actual accuracy
`summarize_market_history`	Compact hourly/daily/weekly/monthly price and load summaries
`assess_supply_tightness`	Transparent reserve-adjusted supply-margin screening
`get_historical_generation`	Official individual-asset CSD archive history
`sync_historical_store`	Incremental local DuckDB/Parquet ingestion
`get_historical_store_status`	Local coverage, manifests, and partition status
`get_forecast`	Official AIL, Pool Price, wind, solar, and combined wind/solar forecasts
`get_research_data`	Bounded page from one verified official historical/spatial/reliability archive
`get_supply_adequacy`	Official supply-adequacy and market-supply-cushion status bands
`get_supply_surplus`	Official hourly supply-surplus forecast status
`get_ffr_net_schedule`	Historical scheduled FFR intertie transfer
`get_dispatch_down_service`	Dispatch Down Service availability report
`get_tmr_reference_price`	Published TMR reference price
`get_system_events`	Bounded AIES Event Log messages
`get_uc_settlement_summary`	Public hourly UC amount and charged volume
`get_price_statistics`	Price distribution and volatility statistics
`get_price_duration_curve`	Pool Price exceedance curve
`analyze_market_event`	Focus versus baseline multi-series associations
`calculate_capture_prices`	Generation-weighted price and capture rate
`analyze_net_load`	AIL minus selected renewable generation
`analyze_supply_stack`	Historical offer-stack analysis
`analyze_intertie_utilization`	Gross-offer to capability proxy
`analyze_generation_mix`	CSD energy and share by fuel
`analyze_asset_dispatch`	Asset output, capacity factor, and ramps
`analyze_outage_impact`	Hourly outage-price association
`analyze_forecast_error`	General forecast error, percentiles, market-hour and lead-time profiles
`calculate_asset_energy_revenue`	Metered MWh × Pool Price gross energy revenue
`compare_csd_to_metered`	Operational CSD output versus metered MWh
`analyze_ramps`	Cadence-aware AIL, net-load, renewable, or asset ramps
`analyze_supply_surplus_events`	Price/load/renewable associations during explicit surplus states
`get_operating_reserve_prices`	Active/standby price components and volumes
`get_operating_reserve_forecast`	Seven-day reserve-volume forecast
`get_operating_reserve_activations`	Hourly standby activations
`summarize_operating_reserve_market`	Product price/volume/activation summary
`analyze_participant_concentration`	Offered-volume shares and HHI using current participant mapping
`analyze_regional_load_generation`	Planning-area and regional load/generation aggregates
`analyze_constrained_volume`	Planning-area/fuel constrained MWh and optional price association
`analyze_scarcity`	Historical adequacy/cushion web codes, EEA, and price context
`analyze_system_frequency`	Compact six-hour 10-second frequency statistics; no raw row output

Market and research tools are read-only. sync_historical_store writes only to the configured local historical-store root; it does not mutate AESO or another external system.

Resources

URI	Content
`aeso://glossary`	Market terminology
`aeso://datasets`	Dataset catalog
`aeso://methodology/pool-price`	Pool Price interpretation
`aeso://methodology/system-marginal-price`	SMP interpretation
`aeso://capabilities`	Complete tool, prompt, and resource surface
`aeso://methodology/{dataset}`	Dataset-specific interpretation and caveats

Prompts: daily_market_brief, investigate_price_event, and compare_market_days.

Data semantics

Timezone: America/Edmonton (AESO market time). DST days may have 23 or 25 local hours.
Intervals: Explicit interval_start / interval_end (half-open ranges in requests).
Units: Pool Price / SMP → CAD/MWh; load / generation / interchange / reserves → MW.
Status: Metadata includes actual / forecast / etc. Forecasts are never implied to be settled actuals.
Finality: Operational feeds may be preliminary; do not assume final settlement.
Point-in-time forecasts: as_of selects only vintages with known issue/publication times at or before the boundary. Unknown chronology is excluded; target intervals absent from persisted history remain unobserved rather than being backfilled from a later publication.
Completeness: Metadata reports available/missing series and expected/missing observations where the source cadence is known. Optional enrichment failures are surfaced as partial or degraded results with warnings.
Pagination: Raw price, SMP, load, generation, and operational reports return page metadata with next_offset. Use summarize_market_history before retrieving long raw series.
Cache timing: retrieved_at identifies the upstream fetch; served_at, cache_hit, and cache_age identify when and how the response was served.
Research identity: analyze_market_event.analysis_manifest records exact sources, parameters, methodology version, warnings, and a deterministic SHA-256 analysis_id.

Development

bash

uv sync --group dev
uv run ruff check src tests scripts
uv run pyright src
uv run pytest tests/unit tests/contract tests/mcp tests/evals --cov=aeso_mcp
uv run python scripts/generate_catalog.py --check
uv run mkdocs build --strict
uv build

Optional live tests:

bash

AESO_API_KEY=... uv run pytest tests/integration -m integration

MCP Inspector:

bash

# Prefer the console entrypoint; or point Inspector at:
# uv run aeso-mcp
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector uv run aeso-mcp

Tests

tests/unit — time, bounds, analytics, config
tests/contract — AESO APIM fixtures via respx
tests/mcp — tool/resource discovery and structured outputs
tests/integration — opt-in live AESO calls

Security

See SECURITY.md. Highlights: no arbitrary URL/shell/SQL tools, host allow-list, secret hygiene, bounded queries, stderr logging for stdio.

Development status

Version 0.3.0 includes the historical store, full CSD generation adapter, official forecast/report providers, general research analytics, operating-reserve market surface, eval suite, and documentation site. Unreleased work adds point-in-time forecast vintages, reproducibility manifests, release-policy hardening, and the verified official research-data archive.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Disclaimer

This project is an independent open-source interface to publicly documented AESO APIs. It is not an official AESO product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by AESO. Market data may be preliminary or incomplete; verify critical decisions against official AESO publications.