Energy Arena

Terms of Service

Last updated: May 27, 2026

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing and using Energy Arena ("the Platform"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use the Platform.

These Terms govern your use of the official Energy Arena website and API operated by the platform maintainers. They apply to the hosted service and do not, by themselves, grant access to or license rights in the platform source code beyond any separate repository release notice.

2. Platform Purpose

Energy Arena is a research platform for benchmarking energy forecasting models. The official hosted instance is currently provided free of charge. Additional program terms may apply to sponsored competitions, prize programs, or commercial service offerings that are introduced separately. The official hosted instance is online in production, but the main application repository is currently private while a public release is being prepared. Any future public repository release, including the software license that applies to that release, will be announced separately.

3. User Accounts and API Keys

3.1 Registration: You must provide a valid email address for account verification. Your chosen username and optional affiliation are displayed publicly on leaderboards alongside your forecasts. You may use a pseudonymous username to maintain anonymity (e.g., "forecaster123").

3.2 API Keys: You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your API keys. Sharing API keys is prohibited. All submissions made with your API key are attributed to your account.

3.3 Account Security: You are responsible for all activities under your account. Notify us immediately of any unauthorized use.

3.4 Pseudonymous Participation: You may participate anonymously by choosing a pseudonymous username and omitting affiliation. Your email address remains private.

4. Forecast Submissions and Data Rights

4.1 Ownership: You retain all intellectual property rights to your forecast models and methods.

4.2 Public Disclosure: Forecast submissions can participate in public rankings under your chosen username unless you hide that challenge profile from the public leaderboard.

  • Aggregated metrics (MAE, RMSE, WIS, CRPS, etc.) are shown on public leaderboards unless you hide that challenge profile from the public leaderboard
  • Private forecast visibility keeps forecast trajectories out of public charts and public forecast API feeds
  • Open after evaluation forecast visibility publishes trajectories only after ground truth is available and the submission has been evaluated
  • Open immediately forecast visibility is a cooperative opt-in that may publish submitted forecasts through the cooperative live feed and paginated participant-history API views, including forecasts before the target period is realized
  • All submissions are associated with your chosen username and optional affiliation
  • Open forecasts can be viewed, downloaded, reused, and analyzed by other users according to the public forecast license stated below

4.3 License Grant: By submitting forecasts, you grant Energy Arena a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual license to:

  • Store and process your submissions for scoring
  • Publicly display open forecasts on leaderboards, charts, visualizations, and cooperative API endpoints where applicable according to your selected forecast and leaderboard visibility
  • Use your submissions (aggregated or individual) for research and platform improvement consistent with your selected forecast and leaderboard visibility and the Privacy Policy
  • Publish statistical analyses and visualizations of platform activity
  • Share aggregated results and open forecasts with researchers and the public for academic and benchmarking purposes
  • Make public forecasts available under CC BY 4.0, requiring attribution to Energy Arena and the submitting participant where reasonably possible

4.4 Rights and upstream data responsibilities: If you choose an open forecast visibility mode, especially Open immediately, you represent that you have the necessary rights to let Energy Arena display and redistribute that forecast output under the public forecast license. Do not submit or mark as open any forecast that you are not entitled to republish because of exchange rules, third-party license terms, confidentiality obligations, or similar restrictions.

4.5 Data Deletion: You can delete your account directly from the dashboard. This removes your participant-linked data from the primary platform database.

  • Your profile, API keys, challenge profiles, submissions, scores, and leaderboard rows are deleted from the primary database
  • Already exported research outputs, downloaded datasets, publications, backups, and third-party archives may still persist outside the live platform database
  • Deletion affects the official hosted instance and does not automatically remove copied data from external systems

Important: Only submit forecasts you are comfortable making publicly available. Do not select Open immediately for forecasts that should not be visible before the target period is realized, should not remain accessible as cooperative history for that challenge and area, or that you cannot lawfully republish.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree NOT to:

  • Submit fraudulent, manipulated, or intentionally misleading forecasts
  • Attempt to reverse-engineer ground truth data before official release
  • Abuse the API with excessive requests (rate limits apply)
  • Harass or impersonate other participants
  • Violate any applicable laws or regulations

6. Ground Truth Data

Public browser-visible realized-value charts are based on Bundesnetzagentur | SMARD.de data under CC BY 4.0. Internal evaluation processing may additionally use ENTSO-E data under the applicable ENTSO-E terms. All external data is provided "as is" without warranties.

7. Leaderboards and Rankings

7.1 Public Display: Leaderboard rankings are public and associated with your chosen username.

7.2 No Guarantees: Rankings are for informational and research purposes only. We do not guarantee accuracy, availability, or continuity of the service.

8. Research and Publication

If you publish research using or refer to this platform, please cite the platform paper:

Energy-Arena: A Dynamic Benchmark for Operational Energy Forecasting

If you refer to Energy-Arena in papers, reports, presentations, or benchmark comparisons, please cite this paper.

Energy-Arena: A Dynamic Benchmark for Operational Energy Forecasting
http://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24705

9. Disclaimer of Warranties

THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. We do not guarantee uninterrupted service, accuracy of scores, or fitness for any particular purpose.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Energy Arena and its operators shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from your use of the Platform.

11. Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time. Continued use of the Platform after changes constitutes acceptance of the new terms. Material changes will be announced via email to registered users.

12. Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms or abuse the Platform.

13. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of Germany. Any disputes shall be resolved in the courts of Germany.

14. Contact

For questions about these terms, please contact:
[email protected]
+49 721 608 44579

By using Energy Arena, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service.