Licences & attribution
CEAtlas is built exclusively from open-licensed data plus Compounding Energy's own proprietary forecast outputs. This page lists every data source, its licence, and the attribution we owe. We publish it in full because using someone's data without crediting them isn't a shortcut worth taking.
The short version. Every map layer is either
open-licensed (OGL v3, CC-BY 4.0, CC0, ODbL, or comparable) or a
Compounding Energy proprietary forecast product. One source —
FracTracker's U.S. Data Centers tracker — is used under
non-commercial-with-credit terms, shown free to every user and never
behind a paid tier. Details for each are below.
Infrastructure
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Transmission lines | PyPSA-Eur (EU cleaned grid) · OpenStreetMap HV (global) · HIFLD (94k US lines) | ODbL (OSM) · MIT/CC-BY (PyPSA-Eur) · US public domain (HIFLD) |
| Substations | PyPSA-Eur · OpenStreetMap (incl. 75k US via chunked Overpass) | ODbL (OSM) · MIT/CC-BY (PyPSA-Eur) |
| Gas pipelines | OpenStreetMap (transmission + distribution) | ODbL |
| Water infrastructure | OpenStreetMap (waterway + water-supply tags) | ODbL |
| Planned upgrades | OpenStreetMap (power tags, proposed / under-construction states) | ODbL |
| Predicted grid (GridFinder) | GridFinder — Arderne, Nicolas, Zorn & Koks (2020). Derived from VIIRS night-time-lights + OSM topology. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.3628142 | CC-BY 4.0 |
OpenStreetMap data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL).
Power plants
| Source | Coverage | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| EIA-860M + EIA-923 | United States (17,204 sites + generation) | US public domain |
| REPD (Renewable Energy Planning Database) | United Kingdom (13,967 projects) | Open Government Licence v3 |
| Crown Estate Scotland — Offshore Wind (lease areas) | Scottish offshore wind pipeline — the location of REPD offshore projects with no REPD coordinates (lease-area centroids; Ossian, MarramWind, MachairWind, Morven …). Contains public sector information, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, from Crown Estate Scotland. | Open Government Licence v3 |
| The Crown Estate — Wind Site Agreements (England, Wales & NI) | English / Welsh offshore wind pipeline — the location of REPD offshore projects with no usable REPD coordinates (lease-area centroids; Norfolk Boreas / Vanguard, Dogger Bank South, Morgan, Morecambe, North Falls). Contains data provided by The Crown Estate that is protected by copyright and database rights. | The Crown Estate Open Data Licence (GIS) v1.1 |
| DUKES 5.11 (Digest of UK Energy Statistics, DESNZ) | GB fleet census — major-producer operational fleet (113.9 GW) plus the dated closure ledger (38.1 GW) | Open Government Licence v3 |
| Elexon BMRS / Insights — B1610 settlement-metered generation | GB metered generation — per-BMU output for the 94 Elexon-metered census sites and the GB wind validation | Elexon open data terms (free re-use with attribution) |
| ENTSO-E Transparency Platform A71 | EU (real operator / unit data) | ENTSO-E Transparency terms (free re-use with attribution) |
| JRC-PPDB-OPEN (JRC Open Power Plants Database) — historical | Fed the EU fleet census until 29 Aug 2026, when the census was rebased onto GEM GIPT (a frame change: JRC's 645 GW large-unit, 2019-snapshot fleet → GEM's utility-scale tracker). No live layer reads it today; credited for the provenance of earlier snapshots. Zenodo DOI 10.5281/zenodo.3574566 | © European Union / JRC — free re-use with attribution |
| powerplantmatching | EU merge layer | GPL-3.0 (tool); underlying sources per their own licences |
| Global Energy Monitor — Global Integrated Power Tracker (GIPT) | World fleet census backbone — August 2026 snapshot: 30,093 plants ≥ 20 MW (7,940.4 GW operating / 612.5 GW retired / 5,119.5 GW pipeline; Europe on its own GEM tab, March 2026 release), plus rest-of-world plant detail on the map | CC-BY 4.0 (attribution + link required) |
| ODRÉ — Registre national des installations de production et de stockage d'électricité (RTE / Enedis / EDF SEI / ELD) | French plant register on the map — installation-level capacity, status and metered rolling-12-month energy | Licence Ouverte v2.0 (Etalab) — attribution required |
| ANEEL — Sistema de Informações de Geração (SIGA) | Brazilian plant register on the map — plant-level capacity, status, owner | ODbL 1.0 — attribution + share-alike on derived databases |
| Geoscience Australia (power stations) + AEMO NEM Generation Information | Australian stations on the map — contains data from AEMO and © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) | CC BY 4.0 |
| NVE — Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat (wind + hydro registers) | Norwegian wind and hydro plants on the map | NLOD 2.0 — attribution required |
| RIVM / Atlas Leefomgeving — Windturbines (vermogen) | Dutch wind turbines clustered to farms on the map | CC PDM 1.0 |
| SEAI — Wind Farms in Ireland (SEAI Wind Atlas) | Irish wind farms on the map | CC BY 4.0 |
| Bundesnetzagentur — Marktstammdatenregister (MaStR) | German wind + solar registry on the map (park-aggregated); refreshed monthly | Datenlizenz Deutschland – Namensnennung – 2.0 (dl-de/by-2-0) |
| WRI Global Power Plant Database (GPPD) | Global fallback | CC-BY 4.0 |
Data centres & the DC pipeline
| Source | Coverage | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| OpenStreetMap | Existing data centres (4,888) + DC-pipeline fill | ODbL |
| PeeringDB | Internet exchange points | CC-BY 4.0 (PeeringDB terms) |
| Epoch AI Frontier | AI mega-projects (MW + capex + timeline) | CC-BY 4.0 |
| PNNL IM3 Atlas | 654 US data centres (operator + county) | ODbL |
| Wikidata | Structured DC entities | CC0 (public domain) |
| Hyperscaler self-disclosed | Meta · Google · Microsoft · xAI · OpenAI / Oracle public pages | Public disclosures, attributed |
FracTracker U.S. Data Centers
The FracTracker U.S. Data Centers layer (the only open community-opposition dataset we know of) comes from the FracTracker Alliance, a 501(c)(3) non-profit. Records are compiled from public permit documents, media monitoring, and community submissions, verified before publication.
It is used with attribution under FracTracker's non-commercial-with-credit terms — "downloaded and shared freely for non-commercial use with credit to FracTracker." CEAtlas displays this layer free to every user, never behind any paid tier. Every popup carries the line "Data: FracTracker Alliance" and a link to their tracker. If FracTracker requests removal, we take the layer down within 24 hours.
Telecom & fibre
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Submarine cables | TeleGeography — submarinecablemap.com (712 cables + 1,917 landing points) | CC BY-SA 4.0 (map) — see note below |
| Offshore wind export cables | OpenStreetMap | ODbL |
| Land fibre (EU) | OpenStreetMap (terrestrial fibre, 7 European regions) | ODbL |
| Fibre routes (global) | OSM confirmed fibre (US+EU) · BTS/FRA rail (US) · OSM rail (EU) | ODbL (OSM) · US public domain (BTS/FRA) |
| US fibre infrastructure | PeeringDB facilities · OSM telecom exchanges · FCC Broadband Data Collection | CC-BY 4.0 (PeeringDB) · ODbL (OSM) · US public domain (FCC BDC) |
Submarine cables note. Submarine cable routes and
landing points are © TeleGeography, whose Submarine
Cable Map is published under
CC BY-SA 4.0. CEAtlas credits
TeleGeography for this layer. For licensing of the underlying
geocoded dataset, see
TeleGeography's data licence.
GB grid analytics
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| GB Constraint Boundaries | NESO ETYS GIS shapefile (boundaries) + NESO Day-Ahead Constraint Flows & Limits (utilisation) | Open Government Licence v3 |
| GB BMU Constraint Actions | Elexon BMRS Bid-Offer Acceptance Levels (BOAL) endpoint, joined to plant locations | Open Government Licence v3 |
NESO and Elexon data are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Markets & prices
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Electricity prices — US | gridstatus.io LMPs (CAISO, ISO-NE, MISO, NYISO) + EIA-930 (8 BAs) | gridstatus.io terms · US public domain (EIA-930) |
| CONUS price actuals — scorecard (/scorecard + Price Forecast Accuracy layer) | NYISO MIS public CSV archive (damlbmp / rtlbmp) · MISO market reports (da_expost_lmp / rt_lmp) · ISO-NE histRpts (WW_DALMP / rt-lmp) · PJM Data Miner 2 (public anonymous key) · SPP Marketplace portal (da-lmp-by-location / rtbm-lmp-by-location) · CAISO OASIS (PRC_LMP / PRC_INTVL_LMP) · ERCOT DAM via gridstatus.io (keyed) or the CompoundVision price-store export · EIA-930 net generation by fuel (FRCC fuel shares) | Public ISO/RTO data under each market's own terms · gridstatus.io terms (ERCOT) · US public domain (EIA-930). Used for scoring only — the raw feeds are not redistributed; what is published is the model-vs-actual comparison. |
| Electricity prices — EU | ENTSO-E Transparency Platform A44 day-ahead (41 bidding zones, drawn as 27 country polygons — IT / NO / SE / DK volume-weighted) | ENTSO-E Transparency terms |
| Electricity prices — UK | Elexon BMRS APXMIDP (post-Brexit GB gap) | Open Government Licence v3 |
| EU generation mix | ENTSO-E Transparency Platform A75 (actual generation per production type) | ENTSO-E Transparency terms |
| EU cross-border flows | ENTSO-E Transparency Platform A11 | ENTSO-E Transparency terms |
| Carbon intensity | ENTSO-E A75 generation mix × IPCC AR6 WG3 Annex III lifecycle emissions factors | ENTSO-E Transparency terms · IPCC AR6 (cited) |
| Interconnection queues | CAISO · NYISO · MISO · SPP · PJM (direct queue downloads) | Respective ISO/RTO terms |
| IRA tax-credit zones | NETL ArcGIS FeatureServer (energy-community designations) | US public domain |
Planned transmission & predicted grid
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| US Planned Transmission (≥ 230 kV) | Our Grid Future (Horizon Energy Systems + Great Plains Institute aggregation of US utility / RTO / TSO filings) | Underlying data public-domain via DOE / FERC / EIA; OGF aggregation used with attribution |
The predicted grid (GridFinder) is credited under
Infrastructure; GridFinder lines tagged
source=osm in the original dataset are excluded to avoid
double-counting our existing OSM ingest.
Capacity-factor & resource data
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Hourly weather store (86-year record) | ERA5 reanalysis, 1940–2025, Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) — powers the CF maps, 24/7 CFE and connection studies, drought and exceedance products | Copernicus licence (free re-use, attribution required) |
| On-demand 8760 point studies (fallback) | Open-Meteo archive API (ERA5-family hourly weather where the CE store is not used) | CC-BY 4.0 |
| Wind capacity factor | DTU Global Wind Atlas v3 (cf_iec2, native 250 m/pixel) | CC-BY 4.0 |
| Wind/solar 250 m textures & cell anchoring | Modified ECMWF IFS HRES forecast data (2017–2025), © ECMWF | CC-BY 4.0 (ECMWF open data terms; modified products attributed) |
| Solar capacity factor | ESMAP / World Bank Global Solar Atlas v2 (PVOUT) | CC-BY 4.0 |
The Global Wind Atlas is released by DTU and the World Bank; the Global Solar Atlas by ESMAP / the World Bank Group. Both are available under CC-BY 4.0 and are attributed accordingly.
Copernicus / ERA5 attribution. Contains modified
Copernicus Climate Change Service information (1940-2025). Neither the
European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use that may be
made of the Copernicus information or data it contains. Fallback
point-study weather is
weather
data by Open-Meteo.com, used under
CC-BY 4.0.
Validation & cross-check sources
Our capacity-factor chain is validated against independent references — and those references have owners too. Methods and results are published in full at /methodology.
| Source | Used for | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| PVGIS (European Commission, Joint Research Centre) | Solar CF chain validation — hourly seriescalc cross-checks at globally-stratified sites |
© European Union / JRC — free use with attribution |
| NASA POWER (MERRA-2 reanalysis) | Independent wind cross-validation — inter-annual correlation and drought-year agreement against a non-ERA5 reanalysis | US Government public data |
| USGS US Wind Turbine Database (USWTDB) | Turbine-true positions (45,437 turbines) anchoring the measured-frame US wind validation | Public domain (citation requested) |
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) | Published fleet-wide wind benchmarks used as context for the measured-basis vintage calibration | Cited with attribution |
Metered-generation comparisons — EIA-923 in the US, Elexon B1610 in GB, ENTSO-E in the EU — use the sources already credited under Power plants.
Exclusion zones & basemaps
| Layer | Source | Licence |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusion zones (urban / airports / protected) — free Infrastructure layer | Natural Earth Data (urban areas, protected areas) · OpenStreetMap (airports) | Public domain (Natural Earth) · ODbL (OSM) |
| Power of Place-West — environmental exclusion categories (Cat 1–3, wind + solar, 11 western US states) — free Infrastructure layer | The Nature Conservancy — Wu, G.C. et al. (2023), Minimizing habitat conflicts in meeting net-zero energy targets in the western United States, PNAS; data release v2, Zenodo doi:10.5281/zenodo.11268042. Shown as schematic scenario-analysis data per TNC’s use limitation (not a siting determination). | CC BY 4.0 (attribution: The Nature Conservancy / Wu et al. 2023) |
| Map tiles & rendering | MapLibre GL + PMTiles (served from Fly.io). Basemaps: Esri (Canvas World_Dark_Gray_Base / World_Light_Gray_Base, World_Ocean_Base, World_Imagery — attribution “© Esri”), NASA EOSDIS (VIIRS CityLights 2012), OpenStreetMap tiles; glyphs from demotiles.maplibre.org. The CARTO basemaps were retired in August 2026. | BSD-3 (MapLibre) · Esri basemap terms (attribution required) · NASA EOSDIS (US-government work) · OSM data ODbL |
CE-proprietary forecasts (Enterprise tier)
The following layers are Compounding Energy proprietary products — model outputs, not third-party open data. They are available to paid subscribers (Enterprise unless stated below) and are not redistributed under an open licence.
- CEGridSight — European 10-day price / generation / cross-border-flow / carbon forecasts from a multi-zone unit-commitment MILP.
- CompoundVision — 16-day per-asset wind & solar production forecasts (ensemble).
-
CENovaSage CONUS day-ahead price forecast
— the nodal run overlay (CENovaSage Run layer; a Desk-tier
analysisfeature, with the run list itself free) is a Compounding Energy model output. Its accuracy record is deliberately public: /scorecard and the free Price Forecast Accuracy (CONUS) map layer. - CEAtlas proprietary scores — the Connection Difficulty Score (CDS) and Site Suitability Score are computed by CEAtlas. Their formulas, inputs, and known limitations are published at /methodology.
Licence summaries
| Licence | What it permits (in brief) |
|---|---|
| OGL v3 | UK Open Government Licence v3.0 — copy, publish, adapt, and exploit (incl. commercially) with attribution. Used for NESO, Elexon BOAL, DUKES, REPD and Crown Estate Scotland data. |
| The Crown Estate Open Data Licence (GIS) v1.1 | The Crown Estate's open-data terms — access, adapt, combine and publish its data in the ordinary course of business with the attribution "Contains data provided by The Crown Estate that is protected by copyright and database rights"; no resale of the data itself, no direct commercial gain from supplying it, no use in a competing data portal, no logos or implied endorsement. CEAtlas uses one derived point per offshore project (the lease-area centroid) to place REPD records. |
| CC-BY 4.0 | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — share and adapt for any purpose, including commercially, with credit. Used for GridFinder, Epoch AI, GEM GIPT, WRI GPPD, Open-Meteo, Global Wind Atlas, and Global Solar Atlas. |
| Copernicus | Copernicus C3S licence — free use of Copernicus Climate Change Service information with the required "Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information" statement, and the disclaimer that neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use made of it. Used for the ERA5 hourly weather store (1940-2025). |
| Elexon open data | Elexon's BMRS / Insights open-data terms — free re-use of published balancing-mechanism and settlement data with attribution to Elexon. Used for B1610 settlement-metered generation. |
| ODbL | Open Database Licence — share, create, and adapt with attribution and share-alike on derived databases. Used for all OpenStreetMap-derived layers and PNNL IM3. |
| CC0 | Public-domain dedication — no rights reserved, no attribution required (we credit anyway). Used for Wikidata. |
| US public domain | US-government works (EIA, FCC, HIFLD, NETL, BTS/FRA, NASA POWER, USGS USWTDB) carry no copyright and are free to re-use. |
| ENTSO-E | ENTSO-E Transparency Platform terms — free re-use of published market data with attribution. |
| NC-with-credit | FracTracker's non-commercial-with-credit terms — shared freely for non-commercial use with credit. The FracTracker layer is shown free to every CEAtlas user, never behind a paid tier. |