We would like to announce our new pricing structure for the Service Charge model and indicate the revision in costs to data costs (Information Cost). All website documentation is progressively updated, but the primary link is on this page.
Please note that the final plans regarding termination/amendments/pro-rata reductions will follow when we have finalised the process. We ask that no users register their intent to terminate/adopt new prices while we implement the process.
- New ECMWF Service Charge fees (from 01 July 2024):
To make data more accessible for all users, ECMWF has reviewed the existing Service Charge model and adjusted the sizes and costs of the Volume Bands and Service Packs: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/DAC/Service+Charges%3A+From+01+July+2024
This change will reduce the cost for ALL users' current volume bands.
- Reduction in Information Cost for Maximum Charge users and EPU unit cost (from 01 July 2024):
At the same time, ECMWF will also reduce the Maximum Charge fee to 47,500 EUR (from 70,000 EUR), and the EPU Unit cost will decrease to €0.15 (from €0.25). This results in approximately 30% reduction in Information Cost for all users. - Updates to the Product Requirements Catalogue for open data
Following the release of the revised open data in March 2024, ECMWF will amend the Product Requirement Catalogue to account for our open data provision changes. Specifically, all ECMWF data coarser than or equal to 0.4 degrees will be available under an open data licence (CC-BY-4), and the Information Cost will be removed for the products with these resolutions.
Please note that any open data that is not freely available will be subject to the Volume and Service Charges.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to raise a ticket in the ECMWF Support Portal.
We are glad to let you know that ECMWF will offer an option called pre-schedule delivery from 5th March 2024.
What is pre-schedule delivery?
Pre-schedule delivery will enable data files to become available as soon as data for each time step is ready to be sent. It means in the majority of runs, data files will be pushed to our users earlier than the standard scheduled dissemination times. Pre-schedule delivery could, on average, save approximately 15-45 minutes.
Notice the order of data files is not guaranteed and the pre-schedule delivery will be limited to HRES and ENS runs. It is expected that more variation than using the scheduled delivery will be observed. And delivery of products will not be deemed to be late until after the scheduled delivery time.
Who can participate and how?
Customers who purchased the gold service package are eligible to participate. If you are one of them and would like to get the data using pre-schedule delivery on 5th March 2024, please raise a ticket at https://support.ecmwf.int before 26th February 2024. Otherwise, you can request to join on or after 5th March 2024 once it is implemented.
When will it be implemented?
Pre-schedule delivery will be implemented on 5th March 2024.
- HRES 06UTC run
- ENS 06UTC run
This year, the requirements freeze period will be between: Tuesday 19th December 2023 and Wednesday 3rd January 2024.
This means the last day for operational changes will be Tuesday 19th December 2023 at 15:00 GMT. Any changes after this will be made in January 2024 and will be done on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you have changes to either extended range or seasonal data, please keep in mind that these need to be installed the week prior to ensure delivery of updated data over the winter closure.
Operators will continue to monitor destinations under the Bronze, Silver and Gold packages during this time but will not be able to make host or configuration changes. This support will solely focus on broken data flows, missed files, etc.
We wish you all a great end of year.
From 01 December 2023, the upper limit of Volume Band 7 will increase from 1.5 TB per day to 3 TB per day with no additional cost for this band. Users in this band can take advantage of this from 01 December 2023. The hard system limit for data volumes is 8 TB per day.
In Q3 2024, ECMWF intends to implement a number of changes to the cost of data and the Service Charge model. This includes:
- decreasing the Maximum Charge licence cost from €70,000 per year to €47,500 per year
- decreasing the EPU from €0.25 to €0.15.
- revising the Services to include new features and change the pricing structure of the volume bands.
ECMWF will announce further details of this when they are confirmed.
In 2024, ECMWF will release the following as Open Data under the CC-BY-4 licence. This means these parameters will be free of Information Cost but may be subject to delivery charges if obtained via dissemination services such as ECPDS.
- The existing ECMWF Open Data will be increased to 0.25 degrees resolution (from 0.4 degrees).
- Additional parameters will be added to support the operation of Limited Area Modelling (LAM), including additional pressure levels.
- The entire ECMWF Real-time Catalogue at a resolution of 0.4 and coarser (0.4, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0, etc.) will be open and have no Information Cost.
- ECMWF will make available an extended range dataset to match the S2S dataset free of charge on the public FTP.
What does this mean for me?
ECMWF will announce the final date of implementation soon. From that point forward, new and renewing contracts can take advantage of these new open datasets. Users wishing to take advantage of this reduction sooner must provide 3 months' notice to terminate their licence agreement and re-sign a new contract. No contracts will be pro rata amended.
From 3-8 September, the 2023 EMS Annual Meeting of the European Meteorological Society – European Conference for Applied Meteorology and Climatology will take place in Bratislava. ECMWF’s Data Support will be present with a poster about the implementation of the ECMWF Open Data roadmap and its challenges.
The display time for posters will be from Monday 09:00-Wednesday 09:00. Ilaria Parodi and Maartje Kuilman will be available for questions at the author in attendance time on Tuesday, 5 September 2023 between 16:00-17:15. Please come and have a chat with us!
If you - also - would like to have a chat with one of us at another point during EMS, please let us know by opening a ticket via support.ecmwf.int and we will be happy to talk to you!
You will be aware that ECMWF will implement its new cycle 48r1 on 27th June 2023. This cycle upgrade brings significant changes, notably higher spatial resolution for ensemble (ENS) and daily 100 ensemble perturbed runs (ENS-EXT). At the same time, for GRIB 2 encoded parameters, a compression method called CCSDS will be introduced. Therefore, if you haven't tried the 48r1 test data, we urge you to take immediate action so that your production system will be transitioned to the new data smoothly.
You will find more details at the following page: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/FCST/Implementation+of+IFS+Cycle+48r1.
To start accessing test data:
- For users who have access to the test Product Requirements Editor (TPREd) for the configuration of 48r1 data, the application is available at this link and is connected to the test ECPDS system (XDISS): https://products.ecmwf.int/esuite/requirements
- For users who do not have access to the test Product Requirements Editor (TPREd) for the configuration of 48r1 data, you can request access to 48R1 test data at our support portal https://support.ecmwf.int
ECMWF will run also run a webinar on 1st June 2023 (13:00 UTC/14:00 BST/15:00 CEST). The webinar will focus on the data side: how to access the test data, important changes, and handling CCSDS compression. Please check here for the registration link for the webinar: https://confluence.ecmwf.int/display/FCST/Implementation+of+IFS+Cycle+48r1 .
We thank you for your patience during this complex cycle upgrade.
From 01 July 2023, the EPU unit cost of ECMWF data will be reduced from 0.50 EUR to 0.25 EUR (50% reduction).
At the same time, the maximum Information Cost will be reduced from 100,000 EUR to 70,000 EUR (30% reduction).
The maximum Information Cost including high-frequency products will be reduced from 108,000 EUR to 78,000 EUR.
This price will be applied to all new and renewing licences from 01 July 2023. Existing real-time licensees will be able to give a three-month notice to terminate their existing licences.
From 01 July 2023, our shopping cart will show the cost of data with the new EPU unit price of 0.25 EUR. We are aiming to provide a test version of the Product Requirement Catalogue (PRC) in early June which will allow users to review the impact of the changes.
For more information on the EPU costing formula, please visit this page: https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/accessing-forecasts/payment-rules-and-options/tariffs-examples
With the need to consolidate its data-provision infrastructure, ECMWF will decommission the Public Datasets Service.
On 1 June 2023 the Public Datasets Service, including access via the Web API client, except for S2S and TIGGE, will stop and the datasets listed below will no longer be available via this service.
Global Reanalysis datasets:
- CERA-20C (Jan 1901 - Dec 2010)
- ERA-20C (Jan 1900 - Dec 2010)
- ERA-Interim (Jan 1979 - Aug 2019)
- ERA-Interim/LAND (Jan 1979 - Dec 2010)
- ERA-20CM (Jan 1900 - Dec 2010) Final
- ERA-40 (Sep 1957 - Aug 2002)
- CERA-SAT (Jan 2008 - Dec 2016)
Regional reanalysis:
Atmospheric composition:
Observation feedback:
Miscellaneous
If you still need to access any of the datasets listed above via the Public Datasets Service, please do so before 1 June 2023. For alternative ways of accessing the data and more up-to-date datasets, please see Decommissioning of ECMWF Public Dataset Service and "watch" the page to get notified of further updates. For any questions, please contact us via the ECMWF Support Portal.
Thank you for using our services and please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.
From 1 July 2022 there will be a new ECMWF Service Charge model for real-time forecast data. There will be a distinct separation between the costs related to the amount of data (in GB) requested and the services from ECMWF that the user wants to couple with the data.
ECMWF has a new data centre housed in Bologna which will be in operation from January 2022.
You need to update your firewall so we can test the dissemination of real-time forecast data.
Please be aware of a number of changes to the licensing of ECMWF data that will be occurring during 2022.
These changes will affect:
- small business discounts
- European cut-out licence
- archive licence
See further details of the 2022 ECMWF licencing changes.
Can I still amend my licence between now and 2021?
Amendments are possible between now and then but will use the existing 0.6 EPU price until the new cost takes effect from 01 January 2021.
What if I have a Maximum Charge or NMHS Full Non-Commercial licence?
There is no change to the Maximum Charge or NMHS Full Non-Commercial licence, but those with these licences types may wish to use the ECMWF costing tool to evaluate your current requirements after 01 January 2021 to see if you are still within this category (apps.ecmwf.int/shopping-cart/). Unfortunately, ECMWF has no way to determine this automatically.
Can I claim my pro-rata reduction now?
All pro-rata reductions will be completed in January 2021. This will be done automatically and there is no action required from you.
My licence renews on 01 January 2021, so what will I be charged?
If your licence renews on 01 January 2021, we will go through the renewal process with you in November/December. If you know that you won't be making any changes between that date and 01 January 2021, we can use the new price. If you think you might make changes before 01 January 2021, we will complete the renewal with the current pricing and we will reduce this in January 2021.