An Electricity Maps alternative that adds prices and forecasts
Electricity Maps built the reference free carbon map — genuine respect, we built our own live terminal on the same playbook. But if your product needs prices and forecasts next to carbon — EV charging, battery dispatch, tariff logic, flexibility — you need a market data platform, not a carbon feed. Voltcast serves day-ahead prices, publicly benchmarked P10–P90 forecasts, imbalance, generation mix AND carbon intensity for 43 European zones, self-serve with published pricing.
| Electricity Maps | Voltcast | |
|---|---|---|
| Core product | Carbon intensity + flow tracing | Prices + forecasts + imbalance + carbon, one API |
| Day-ahead prices | Not the product | 43 EU zones, 15-minute native, history to 2015 |
| Price forecasts | None | P10/P50/P90, accuracy published daily at /accuracy |
| Forecast accountability | — | Don't beat the free baseline in your zone → that zone is free (contractual) |
| Carbon methodology | Flow-traced consumption intensity (excellent) | Production-mix lifecycle intensity (IPCC AR5, method disclosed) |
| Pricing | Quote-gated for commercial API use | Published: free tier · €9 Home · €49–999 self-serve, cancel any time |
| Free map | app.electricitymaps.com | voltcast.com/terminal (prices, carbon, wind, temperature, flows) |
| Push & optimization | Data feed | Webhooks <60s after auction, SSE, cheapest-window / battery endpoints |
Comparison reflects publicly documented capabilities as of July 2026. Corrections welcome: [email protected].
Three lines to your first price curve
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \ "https://voltcast.com/api/v1/prices/DE-LU?from=2026-07-10&to=2026-07-12"
Frequently asked
Is Voltcast a drop-in replacement for Electricity Maps?
For consumption-based, flow-traced carbon accounting, no — that is their specialty and they are excellent at it. Voltcast computes production-mix lifecycle carbon intensity (IPCC AR5 factors, methodology disclosed) which is what most price-plus-carbon applications need. If your use case is prices, forecasts and optimization with carbon as one signal among several, Voltcast covers it in one API.
How does pricing compare?
Electricity Maps quotes commercial API access per request — pricing is not published. Voltcast publishes every price: a free tier, €9/month for home automation, €49–999/month self-serve for the full API. You can subscribe, upgrade and cancel from the dashboard without talking to anyone.
Does Voltcast have a free map too?
Yes — voltcast.com/terminal is free and login-free: live prices, carbon intensity, renewables share, wind, station temperatures, negative-price risk and cross-border flows for every zone, with time travel back to 2015.
What about forecast quality?
We publish it daily — MAE and pinball loss per zone and horizon versus a naive baseline, wins and losses both. No other European power data vendor publishes ongoing forecast accuracy at all.
Check our accuracy before you commit.
Every forecast we sell is benchmarked in public, every day, against a free baseline — and if we don't beat it in your zone, that zone is free. That's in the terms.
30 seconds · no credit card · free zone forever