Download a month's worth of half-hourly usage data via the existing CSV download link on the online account

Oh well, good try! Maybe in the future…

Actually, in the meantime, as others on here have pointed out, I find I can simply paste in the data from n3rgy.com on a daily basis (i.e. 48 half-hour cells per day) into my own little (monthly) spreadsheet, which then enables some nice analysis; I’m finding Apple Numbers is OK to work with.  And it’s not too much of a pain to select 48 cells at a time (24 hours’ worth) from the downloaded CSV file and paste them into the spreadsheet in one easy copy and paste. Takes seconds for each day’s worth. 
 

The next stage is to be able to paste in a whole month’s in one go, which will need the original CSV file to be jiggled about a bit first so that all the monthly downloaded data are in a block of 31x48 cells. 

Brand new here and really useful stuff, thanks folks.  Being unaware of the n3rgy and glowmarkt services, I had, over the last few days, written some C++/VB dotnet code to auto login to my OVO account and, on a day by day basis, trawl back through all half hour data.  I should perhaps explain - effectively, within the program, I created a simple web-browser, and by ‘inspection’ of the HTML code, found which ‘buttons’ to (auto) press, and then within the HTML, locate and extract HH data.  I accumulated all 48 per day into a dated CSV string array.  [ Perfectly valid site scraping, not ‘hacking’ which I never do! ]

It all went well until I simply could not “get the values to balance” with what OVO presented on the site for both daily totals and monthly totals - OK - not FAR out but no real explanation.  [ I fully understand the possibility of rounding issues to 2dp - but, say over a month’s worth it would have been pretty darned close - say +/- a few hundredths.]  So, when in doubt, ask Google LOL!  And I arrived here.

Rather than responding to several of the useful posts, I’ll just quickly sum up and thank BeePee who mentioned n3rgy and glowmarkt, and to Firedog for their useful insights!  

State of play: using n3rgy, although it DID say it would take some time to fetch the data, there was no indication of exactly what that meant, and it did permit me to download, but all I received were two empty (apart from the header lines) .csv files.  Perhaps it is still “collecting”?

On the other hand, with glowmarkt it advised that it may take a day to prepare the data, so I’ll check back with both of them tomorrow.

Anyway, looks like I have found a ‘home from home’ with folks who are happy to address often technical, software and general Smart Metering technology issues!

Thanks folks!

I haven’t trawled back to see what nonsense I’ve written here before, but I’d just say that I prefer to use Guy Lipman’s simple but effective interface to access the data. It’s exactly the same as you’d get from n3rgy direct, but without the extra hassle of the zipped files. It’s become a daily routine to pick up the previous day’s data and plug them into my spreadsheets. I usually get a day’s figures before 01:00 the following day, so before they’ve even had chance to cool down.

I may have mentioned this, too: rather than scraping web pages, you could automate extracting the data on which those pages are based. This URL, for example, should return a JSON file of yesterday’s half-hourly data if you substitute your own OVO account no. for nnnnnnn: smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/half-hourly/nnnnnnn?date=2024-03-15. You’ll have to work out the authentication; there are instructions somewhere at this site for doing that, too. You can see the data if you sign into your account in a (Chromium) browser and then visit the URL in a new tab in the same session.

Have fun!

I can definitely vouch for the Guy Lipman site after @Firedog recommended it, it’s brilliant, and brilliantly easy to use.  You wouldn’t need anything else.  For gas and for electricity.  He also specifies (with dates) any “missing data” HH slots, which on its own even without any of the many other features in the site is a very good thing!

But very recently I’ve also gone down the route of buying (just under £70) Hildebrand’s  Glowmarkt IHD which comes with all sorts of benefits over and above the “normal” Chameleon, for example in opening up the possibility of “easily” working with MQTT  (!!! Easily for some…I’m still trying to get my head around MQTT).  But even apart from that it’s a lovely IHD (displaying to the nearest Watt) and even though I have few 70 quids to throw about on a whim for technology I barely understand, I do consider it an absolute gem for the money. 
 

Just by force of habit the associated Hildebrand Bright app (free) and Glowmarkt data (free) (incidentally, I’ve found the free Bright app is greatly enhanced by their bought IHD) has been for some months now my go-to solution for downloading my HH electricity data early next day. But this is not to detract from the Guy Lipman site, which offers far far more information than I’m ever able to glean from the Hildebrand or n3rgy data off my own bat.  
 

And the n3rgy website HH data (also free, also to 3 decimal places) has also proved over the last five or six months whenever I’ve dipped into it, very dependable.

And the Hildebrand support staff have been absolutely brilliant with my queries. 
 

Yup @Firedog - good point - “I may have mentioned this, too: rather than scraping web pages, you could automate extracting the data on which those pages are based. This URL, for example, should return a JSON file of yesterday’s half-hourly data if you substitute your own OVO account no. for nnnnnnn: smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/half-hourly/nnnnnnn?date=2024-03-15.”  Indeed!  I just hadn’t got that far as yet, but that type of thing is on the cards (as I have done with a couple of other sites).  Driven by curiosity I have as we speak (well, as I write, LOL) just tried that - and it’s ideal!  Authentication was already present due to an existing live login on the OVO site.  Cool, saved me some time on the HTML “Page Inspector” on Chrome and tracking down the links….  At least I have it now, TY!

Oh, and @waltyboy  as well as Firedog, I have had a good look at the Guy Lipman site, gave it a quick try-out, and it is impressive, basically it’s all there!  ( I already handle data gaps in the current software I have, which on the OVO site just show missing kWh as a “-” char.  Something slightly different to do, but not at all difficult)

So, I have several options now I have the “real” data readily available.  I’ll probably pick one way or another to integrate it into my existing V.Studio program.  [ Although I can ‘work well enough’ with Excel, its marcos and its VBA I generally prefer to do a lot of pre-processing of data for “specific analyses purposes” in C++/VB and then launch out the results to Excel

Thanks both for your hints and advice!

Loved reading up on this, and it’s nice to meet you, @BillyG.

So what’s your latest recommendation for someone looking to easily get their half hourly usage data? If you think it’s helpful, you’re always able and welcome to put that in a separate topic guide for someone falling in your footsteps looking for advice...

Thank you @BillyG for all your useful and fascinating info and analysis, and for your kind and informative feedback…I second the @Tim_OVO comment above, re any of your thoughts on whether you feel there is a single most straightforward approach to folk downloading their HH data, particularly from their OVO account rather than through a third party?

I’ve been quite happy so far with my present approach to viewing and storing my daily HH data, but always willing to learn, even if some (most?!) of your tempting recipes for accessing direct from OVO might seem at first reckoning to be beyond my ken!  I lag behind many on here in technical knowledge, many who’ll be much more au fait with your workings than I, but with a few good guidelines and pointed nudges I’ve been helped a lot on this forum…
 

And your time is definitely much appreciated, thanks and all the very best…
 

Hi @Tim_OVO and @waltyboy - let me get back on this later, but I’ll “half-answer” the question - from Tim “for someone looking to easily get their half hourly usage data?” and yourself Walt - “downloading their HH data, particularly from their OVO account rather than through a third party”

Right now I’m with Firedog on the “easiest” - the Guy Lipman route.   

However, the “direct from their OVO account (avoiding 3rd party)” I feel is more ‘problematic’ (in the sense of not impossible by any means, but may have a level of difficulty depending on the end-user’s skill set)

I have to go attend to dinner (my turn tonight Grrrrr…. nah, I don’t mind) but I thought I give a quick response and think a bit more about “direct from OVO account”…...

Many thanks @BillyG, that Guy Lipman site is great, right enough.  And as for playing with the HH data direct from one’s OVO account pages, yep, it’s that “skill set” bit you mention that I did rather suspect.  I shall await with great interest any further developments that might occur!

And, even more important, enjoy that dinner! My go-to meal preparations usually involve pasta in some shape or form…
 

All the best again…cheers.

Putting my pedant hat on for a moment, I’d regard OVO as just another consumer of the Hh data held by DCC, albeit a rather special one by virtue of being the supplier. So they’re just as much a ‘third party’ in this exercise as n3rgy and others who have your permission to access the DCC data. 

I haven’t checked how many gaps there are in the data OVO hold for me, but I reckon there are fewer in the data I’ve got from n3rgy (a total of 13 half-hours in the past 18 months, four of them while the meter was being exchanged, the rest two local power cuts).