The First Open Data List of European Electricity Suppliers

The most comprehensive open data list of European energy suppliers ever compiled in API format is now available for free via re.alto-energy. For the first time, users will be able to integrate and browse a full database of more than 1700 electricity retailers from across six European countries.

The European Electricity Suppliers API was created in less than a day by a team of specialists from energy tech start-up re.alto. Experts in the market, they had identified that energy supplier lists were only available on a fragmented country-by-country basis, usually assimilated by national regulators in the form of licensee lists and sometimes sold by market research firms. What’s more, for countries such as Germany without a supply licence framework, these lists had been even harder to source and often had to be compiled through time-intensive inefficient web scraping.

The energy suppliers database is available with a free-to-use licence on the re.alto API marketplace here. It currently covers electricity suppliers from:

• Belgium
• France
• Germany
• Ireland
• United Kingdom
• Netherlands

The database contains information on each supplier including the country or regions it serves, whether it offers a domestic or non-domestic supply, availability of any dynamic tariff products and website information. Alongside standard providers, it also includes green energy suppliers such as Ovo and Ecotricity in the UK, Lampiris in Belgium and Greenchoice in the Netherlands.

This is the first cross-border list of its kind to be made available in API format. It is also the first step towards the development of an energy API which not only offers the full list of European energy suppliers but also includes energy price data – technically challenging to date due to the dynamic nature of electricity tariffs.

The API format of the database ensures that the data remains current as, unlike more traditional CSV files, APIs can be automatically refreshed and maintained without the need for regular manual updating. In such a competitive electricity retail market with a constantly shifting landscape of incoming challenger brands and more established players, this streamlined efficiency is vital. Such an API-led approach also enables straightforward integration which bypasses the legacy infrastructure, so often a barrier in the past to digital change across the energy industry.

To get free access to the full dataset of European electricity suppliers, visit the re.alto API Marketplace portal.