Microproduct data guidebeginner

NREL Alternative Fuel Stations

Alternative-fuel and EV charging station locations for building corridor maps and local charging finders.

Start the guide Open official source

At a glance

Difficulty
Beginner — comfortable for a first prototype
Size
Tiny · ≤0.05 GB
Formats
JSON, CSV, GeoJSON
Access
API
API key
Required
Provider
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Updates
Continuous
Data terms
U.S. Government public data / federal copyright guidance

From source to product signal

Test a product idea in four steps

The Alternative Fuel Stations API returns station locations that power the Alternative Fuels Data Center locator. Start with electric stations in one state and a small limit. A listed station can be temporarily unavailable, network-specific, or restricted to fleets.

1

Check the setup

  • Python 3.10 or newer
  • A notebook environment such as Jupyter or Google Colab
  • A free NLR API key saved in the NREL_API_KEY environment variable
2

Access the data

  1. 1.Register for a free key on the NLR Developer Network.
  2. 2.Save the key in the NREL_API_KEY environment variable.
  3. 3.Request a bounded list of electric stations for one state.
Open official source
3

Run the Python example

Install the packages, then run the notebook cell.

python -m pip install pandas requests

import os
import pandas as pd
import requests

response = requests.get(
    "https://developer.nlr.gov/api/alt-fuel-stations/v1.json",
    params={
        "api_key": os.environ["NREL_API_KEY"],
        "fuel_type": "ELEC",
        "state": "CO",
        "status": "E",
        "limit": 20,
    },
    timeout=30,
)
response.raise_for_status()
stations = pd.DataFrame(response.json()["fuel_stations"])
stations["retrieved_at_utc"] = pd.Timestamp.now(tz="UTC")
print(stations[["station_name", "city", "latitude", "longitude", "ev_connector_types"]].head(20))
4

Test a useful signal

Map open EV chargers in one state

Test whether a bounded station extract can power a local charging finder.

  1. 01Keep open electric stations and explode connector types into a countable field.
  2. 02Map stations by city and flag missing coordinates or access hours.
  3. 03State that network status can change after the snapshot and that fleet-only sites are not public chargers.

Dataset details

National Renewable Energy Laboratory is a government source. Last verified 2026-08-17. Temporal coverage: continuously updated station inventory.

Theme

Geospatial & Infrastructure

Domains

TransportationEnergyInfrastructure

Data types

GeospatialTabularRegistry Data

Tasks

MappingSite SelectionOperational Planning

Geography

United States

Formats

JSONCSVGeoJSON

Provider

National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Data terms

U.S. Government public data / federal copyright guidance