MIDAS is the principal tool supporting the load management standards. Amongst other things, the standards require the state’s largest utilities and all large community choice aggregators within their service areas to populate the MIDAS database with time-dependent rates. 

MIDAS has been available since August 25, 2021, and is now receiving rates from the regulated entities. Users who plan to populate and maintain rate information stored within the database typically must have the appropriate account, advanced programming skills, and in-house software. 

Link to the MIDAS database.  

  • How to connect to the MIDAS database

    The MIDAS documentation is designed to assist utilities, community choice aggregators, and automated service providers in connecting to the database through an application program interface (API), including uploading and downloading data. Researchers and members of the public may register with MIDAS to query data stored in the database. As indicated above, users typically must have programming skills and software to use the system.

Guided Steps

The following steps explain how to call the endpoints available in the MIDAS system. Users will need to be able to write the code necessary to do this. If a user would like to use sample code, examples are included in the MIDAS documentation linked above.  

There are two types of accounts that can be used to interface with MIDAS: LSE accounts and User accounts.  

For security of the system, only CEC-verified utility and community choice aggregator personnel can upload (POST) data using an LSE account. User accounts can only query (GET) data from MIDAS.  
 
Registration is done through the API by making a one-time call, or a one-time prompt to the API, to the MIDAS registration endpoint with the required parameters. If no errors occur, this process will send an email to the address specified as a parameter to the call. The user must then respond to the email before they can request a token, a string of characters allowing the user to access MIDAS. 

To register as a utility account, users may follow the same procedure listed above. However, after verifying their account via email, they must request utility access by emailing the MIDAS team at midas@energy.ca.gov with verification that they represent the utility they claim.  

For forgotten passwords or usernames, please follow the links below:   

After registering, make a call to the token endpoint with username and password credentials to receive a token string. This token will expire after 10 minutes.  

Populating the RateInfo and Value tables within MIDAS requires a call to the ValueData endpoint using the XML schema included in the MIDAS documentation. This function is available to LSE accounts, as either an energy or distributor company, once the identify has been verified with the MIDAS system. 

To receive a string with the XML schema definition, the user must call the ValueData endpoint and use the GET verb with no parameters. The system then uses the string to validate incoming XML upload data.  

To receive the information that a specified lookup table stores, the user must call the ValueData endpoint with a parameter that identifies the relevant lookup table. The resulting data will include the upload codes stored in the specified table with a description of each. Possible lookup tables include Country, Daytype, Distribution, Enduse, Energy, Location, Ratetype, Sector, State, and TimeZone.  

To receive information regarding active RIN lists, the user must call the ValueData endpoint with a parameter that identifies the signal type of the RINs to be returned. The various signal type parameters follow the structure included below:  

0. All 

1. Electricity rates 

2. Greenhouse gas emissions 

3. California Independent System Operator FlexAlert 

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midas@energy.ca.gov
916-776-7971

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