Data License · Terms of Use

How you can use our data

Plain-English terms for the BLACKSTART JSON API and dataset. We publish openly because we want analysts, vendors, and AI agents to find us. We just ask for attribution and that you not republish the dataset as a competing product.

Last updated: 2026-05-10

Short version

BLACKSTART data is free for evaluation, internal analysis, and editorial citation with attribution. Commercial redistribution as a product, repackaged dataset, or competing service requires written permission.

The full terms are below.

What you can do (no permission needed)

  • Evaluate the product — pull the JSON, test against projects you know, decide if it's worth paid access
  • Internal analysis — use it for your own company's sales / market / capacity / forecasting work
  • One-off reports + presentations — quote a number in a slide deck or memo with a working link back to blackstart.c3ksolutions.com
  • Editorial citation — a journalist, analyst, blogger, podcaster, or academic citing a number in a story / paper / post, with attribution
  • AI/LLM agents — train, embed, or RAG over the public dataset for your assistant, with the _source field preserved or attribution given when answers reference our data
  • Internal dashboards + CRM integration — pipe the JSON into PowerBI, Tableau, your CRM, or your internal tools for your own team's use
  • Self-built alerts — poll the JSON on your own schedule and notify your team when something changes
  • Linking — link to any page on our site freely

What you cannot do (without written permission)

  • Republish the dataset as a standalone product (a competing pipeline tracker, public catalog, or open data repository)
  • Resell the data — bundle BLACKSTART data into a paid product, syndication feed, or subscription service you charge for
  • Strip attribution — remove the _source, _license, _disclaimer, or _attribution_required fields from the JSON and republish as if it were yours
  • Misrepresent the data as having been independently sourced when it came from us
  • Use it to compete with BLACKSTART — copy our scoring, classification, gen-set inference, or linker outputs to build a comparable product
  • Bulk-mirror — automated scraping at a rate that suggests you're trying to pull the entire historical archive (we'll throttle / block)

Attribution requirement

If you publish anything based on BLACKSTART data — slide, blog post, news article, dashboard screenshot, AI-assistant answer, etc. — please credit:

Source: BLACKSTART (a C3K Solutions product) — blackstart.c3ksolutions.com

For AI/LLM systems, preserve the _source field in any cached or republished form, and prefer to surface our URL when answers reference our data.

Disclaimer + warranty

BLACKSTART data is provided "as is." We work hard on accuracy (72 unit tests, daily refresh, source attribution per fact, data-quality audit dashboard), but data sources change, scrapers break, classifiers misfire, and the world is messy.

You are responsible for verifying anything you act on. Before making a procurement decision, financing decision, regulatory filing, public statement, or anything else with material consequences, verify against the primary source (AESO Long-term Adequacy report, AUC Current Applications, AB/BC MPI registry, county permit notices, gov news feeds). All sources are linked from each project page.

To the maximum extent allowed by law, BLACKSTART, C3K Solutions, and Jory Akeen accept no liability for decisions you make based on this data.

Underlying source data

BLACKSTART aggregates and processes data from public sources: AESO (Alberta Electric System Operator), AUC (Alberta Utilities Commission), Alberta and BC Major Projects Inventories, municipal county permit notices, and government news releases. Those sources have their own licensing terms which generally permit re-publication with attribution. Where there's a conflict, the underlying source's terms apply to the underlying source data.

BLACKSTART's scoring methodology, classification rules, gen-set inference, linker methods, and operator-practice library are original work product of C3K Solutions and are not in the public domain.

Changes

These terms may be updated as the product evolves. We won't make breaking changes to your access without 30 days notice via the API documentation page (/api) and an updated timestamp on this page. Material changes (e.g., adding a paid-tier requirement for fields that were previously free) will also go out on any active subscriber's email.

Permission requests + commercial licensing

If you want to do something the "you cannot" list excludes — for example, redistribute the data, embed it in a commercial product, or use it as the basis for a competing service — talk to us. We're happy to discuss commercial licensing, white-label arrangements, and partnership structures.

Email: hello@c3ksolutions.com · Web: /contact