Given that data is stored centraly as well as on OVO servers I would like to see a public API which I could download all readings that my smart meter has sent to the central server so that when I change energy supplier I can still access data my meter supplied while with my previous supplier(s)

A Public API would be pretty neat and I think it’s something OVO and Kaluza are willing to consider as a future feature. It’s definitely a valid feature idea, that’s for sure.

In the meantime, if you’d like to grab ALL of your smart meter data at once, the recommended route would be to have a chat with the Support Team and request a data export from OVO directly. This can take a while to crunch, but there’s no cost for this service and you’ll receive the data in a machine and human readable format.

The ability to download old data is certainly becoming more common. I can still logon to Scottishpower who i was with prior to ovo and download all my usage data from when i was with them. Data export is to a spreadsheet all the way back to 2019. I didn't have a smart meter then so the data is limited but interesting for comparison. This is obviously data going back further than i can get from the likes of the Bright app which is limited to smart meter data. Does beg the question how long suppliers are allowed to store my old data before they have to delete it. 

Useful to know. 

So if you had a smart meter before OVO, can OVO give you this prior smart meter data as well?

Is there time limit in terms of how far OVO  can go back prior to being an OVO customer? 

Smart Meters of both S1 and S2 are capable of storing at least 13 months worth of billing data, but this doesn’t always include usage data for that entire period, because that takes up a lot more space. If you’ve been with OVO right from when the meter was first installed, then I think OVO can just grab all your data from the archives of the billing platform which is the easy option, although it is possible for them to re-download all the data from the meter again if needed.

If you’ve transferred in from another supplier… Might be a different story. In theory, it’d be a similar case of downloading from the meter, but I’d have to ask @Jess_OVO about that.

I wonder if the DCC stores anonymous data for longer than 13 months somewhere away from the meters. Certainly be useful for analysis of trends even if customers can't get access to it. 

Not that I know of beyond the usual logs, configurations and the like. The Network Data Dashboard and Network Performance Dashboard suggests that some data is stored, but most of it seems to be more general stuff like how the network is performing as a whole. I don’t think DCC stores meter readings or usage data.

And technically speaking, DCC can’t even touch that data anyway. They’ve deliberately revoked their ability to do that as part of the security model. The whole system is really cleverly designed so that even if you did compromise DCC, you can’t just take control of literally every smart meter ever and disconnect everyone. DCC has considered that possibility and the fact they can’t control such functionality means it wouldn’t work anyway. :)

To pull off a stunt like that, you’d literally have to compromise the entire infrastructure right the way down to each individual smart meter. Good luck with that!

Makes sense. 

This is a good description of how anonymous data is being captured and used by Western Power. 

https://www.westernpower.co.uk/smarter-networks/smart-meter-data

For what it’s worth, they had access to (only) the last 6 months of data, nothing older than that when I asked the support team for this before “moving out”, a year ago.

Related points - as a DCC Supplier User, Ovo have actual meter readings and store them, both new (Orion) and old (Apollo) systems, going back to my smart meter installation, over 2 years ago. But they might not appreciate the use of GDPR SAR as a way to get that info (I made my SAR for other reasons).

Meter readings are needed for billing, of course. As  far as I can tell, DCC Other Users only get consumption data (the 30 min Wh values), because they don’t need to bill for consumption.

When I registered my Bright app, over the next few hours it downloaded precisely the last 13 months of data (to within a few minutes, presumably because that’s what was still in the meters at the time it got to the oldest data), and those data are still available in my app, which by now has  just over 2 years of smart meter data.

@Simon1D was that 30 minute data?  I registered via web as indicated above.  They downloaded my usage over 12 months (the time I have had a smart meter).  However the CSV download only had limited 30 minute data for about 15 days and nothing else.  I have tried subsequently and got no more data - even current data.  I did try to register via the smart app and got authentication failure.

I reckon I messed up and confused the systems.  I have not had time (nor the will power) to investigate further.

In the end I sampled winter and summer day consumptions over a limited number of days via OVO usage stats and used the average as my “typical” consumption summer/winter for determining if Solar would be good for me.  Surprisingly (not sure if I should be) the results came out not dissimilar to the online “business case” models.

It was 30 min data yes (with very occasional gaps, which are faithfully preserved in the hourly, daily, weekly etc totals that the Bright App also shows - apparently everything derives from the 30 min data), but it was retrieved in Feb 2021 which was before it became possible to download CSV data via a web page.

I don’t know of any way to extract the data from the app, so perhaps that wouldn’t be so useful to you anyway.

Did this get posted?

Just saw Octopus has some pretty awesome public API, wondering if Ovo has the equivalent
https://developer.octopus.energy/docs/api/

Hi @gggg yes Octopus are doing really well with this API access for its customers. I hear they also have a private forum for this. Anyone here a member?

OVO’s billing platform is hosted by its sister company, Kaluza. They have an API so that its clients can access their customer data. The latest I’ve heard is that this hasn’t been made public for its clients’ customers. I’ll try and find out the latest and get back to you!

Do they? I might go looking for that. Would be great if OVO did the same - I’m still with OVO for a bit.

Not sure who to ask this question of. Possibly @Tim_OVO.

I have a smart meter on the V2G trial. I have the Kaluza phone app and the OVO Computer app. If I want to see my half hourly imports, exports to The Grid and Exports to the house I simply go to the Kaluza phone app and click on the download arrow in the top right corner of the screen and I can download the complete month’s data in spreadsheet form, ready to go on my Apple computer.

If I want to do the same with my OVO account I can get the data on a daily basis showing ½ hourly info but there is no way (that I can see) how to download the info…..other then highlight the numbers...but then it’s not compatible with Apple’s “Numbers” App and I have some copying and pasting to do...for every day of the month.

If Kaluza have the ability to download the data easily, do OVO have a similar method that I've missed...and if not, are there any plans to do so? At present the data for Kaluza is brilliant but OVO is a struggle.

Can you also tell me, The National Grid record data in GMT throughout the year, even when it’s BST but some sites record data an hour later than the clock time...explained that for Solar Data, Mid Day isn’t always 12.00 noon, sometimes before and sometimes after so it’s recorded so that 1.00pm is actually 12.00 noon. Hence to avoid the extra hour in Winter and lesser hour in Spring the time is always recorded GMT. Is the time data as recorded by OVO the same time as Kaluza and is this time GMT?

Hi @Leo Moran 

Great second question, add your first question is a popular one. The answer is currently that there isn’t a way to download online account usage.

The second question, I know that smart meters use a time switch that DOESN’T change in BST vs GMT. Which means peak / off peak usage shifts forward an hour. However I don’t know how this impacts the online account. My assumption is that the online account uses a system to correctly shift usage blocks in terms of local time. @Blastoise186, what ae your thoughts? 

Thanks for that @Tim_OVO ...and I’ll make a coffee and reread the second part to understand what you said...the grey matter isn’t as quick as it used to be.

If you have previously downloaded the Bright app. 

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.hildebrand.brightionic

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bright/id1369989022?ls=1&mt=8

Then you can use the same login details on their beta website to download a csv as a workaround. 

http://www.smarttariffsmartcomparison.org/login

It looks like there’s a semi-manual kludge to shift the usage figures by an hour at the start and end of BST. This is only for presentation, though; there are still 48 half-hourly readings for each day as the consumption figures show. Here are my figures for 30 October 2022 as displayed online:
  

So, only 46 readings usage figures displayed, starting at 01:00 GMT. It all comes out in the wash, of course, because the readings sequence is unbroken. Just for comparison, here are the data underlying the displayed figures (for the first 7.5 hours):
 

nExtracted from https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/half-hourly/3198737?date=2022-10-30. To get your own JSON data, substitute your OVO account no. for 3198737 in the URL, and open the page in the same browser session as one where you’re signed in at account.ovoenergy.com so the page can find your access token.] 

@Firedog is this an OVO public API? 

https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/half-hourly/*accountnumber*?date=2022-10-30

Sure. That’s where the data come from to populate the various bits of the account site. Here are a few more sources that work for me:

https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/monthly/{account}?date=2022

https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/pace/recommended-dds/v1/{account}/projected-costs?limitNextYear=true

 https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/rlc/rac-public-api/api/v5/supplypoints/electricity/{MPAN}/meters/{MSN}/readings?from=2016-09-09

This isn’t real-time; I think the newest data are from the last daily refresh, usually shortly after 01:00 each day. So today’s data won’t ever be available.

>What I’d really like is for an Excel guru to tell me how to include the authentication refresh-token into a query so I could push the JSON data directly into a worksheet.]  

You need to go through the login and cache the cookies to get access to the smart meter API.  I’ve got this all coded in Node-RED Javascript.  I dump data into a MySQL D/B.  Here are the URIs that I use:

https://${MYOVO}/login
https://${MYOVO}/api/v2/auth/login
https://${PAYMAPI}/first-login/api/bootstrap/v2/
https://${PAYMAPI}/orex/api/plans/${msg.account}
https://${PAYMAPI}/rlc/rac-public-api/api/v5/supplypoints/electricity/${msg.mpxn}/meters/${msg.msn}/readings?from=${context.get('dailyStart')}
https://${PAYMAPI}/usage/api/half-hourly/${m.account}?date=${m.start}

Except for the 1st login, these all return a JSON payload that is easy to walk in Javascript.   I use the plans request to get the MSN and MPXN fields as well as current peak, off-peak and standing charges. The readings request gives me daily peak and off-peak usage which can be used to calculate charges.  Looping around the half-hourly request give the daily breakdown.

The API is the same for gas and electricity, though I have an electric-only low energy house so only download electrical data.  

Incidentally we are currently running at 80% off-peak use.

Thanks to you all for taking the time to explain this to me….sadly it’s not a language I’m familiar so it’ll take a few days to work it all out….I’ll persevere though. Thanks again.

@Tim_OVO @g-de Is there a way to parse the balance from the API? I have not seen that in the documentation and I failed by just playing around with random URLs that could potentially show it in my Python script.  

Are you just wanting the “Today’s balance” section from the home page?

Using the network tab of browser dev tools is the simplest way to reverse engineer the API.

Best I can see is that it uses a POST request to:

https://smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/bast/api/graphql

With the following body:

{
    "query": "\nfragment FuelFields on BillingFuel {\n  consumption {\n    rates {\n      rate {\n        pence\n      }\n      cost {\n        pounds\n      }\n      kwh\n      openingRead\n      openingReadType\n      intermediateReads {\n        date\n        read\n        readType\n      }\n      closingRead\n      closingReadType\n      startDate\n      endDate\n      friendlyLabel\n    }\n  }\n  standing {\n    netCharge {\n      pounds\n    }\n    rates {\n      rate {\n        pence\n      }\n      startDate\n      endDate\n      days\n    }\n  }\n}\n\nfragment PeriodFields on SelectedPeriod {\n  next\n  previous\n  data {\n    electricity {\n      ...FuelFields\n    }\n    gas {\n      ...FuelFields\n    }\n    upgrades {\n      description\n      grossCharge {\n        pounds\n      }\n      initialGrossCharge {\n        pounds\n      }\n      startDate\n      endDate\n      taxRate\n    }\n    transactions {\n      description\n      netCredit {\n        pounds\n      }\n      taxRate\n    }\n    payments {\n      date\n      description\n      credit {\n        pounds\n      }\n    }\n    start\n    openingBalance {\n      pounds\n    }\n    end\n    closingBalance {\n      pounds\n    }\n    totalCharge {\n      grossCharge {\n        pounds\n      }\n      netCharge {\n        pounds\n      }\n      vatCharge {\n        pounds\n      }\n    }\n    energyCharge {\n      pounds\n    }\n    isStatementAvailable\n  }\n}\n\nquery Period($id: String!, $index: Int!) {\n  billingSummary(id: $id) {\n    lastUpdated\n    billablePeriod(periodIndex: $index) {\n      ...PeriodFields\n    }\n  }\n}\nquery LatestPeriod($id: String!) {\n  billingSummary(id: $id) {\n    lastUpdated\n    latestPeriod {\n      ...PeriodFields\n    }\n  }\n}",
    "operationName": "LatestPeriod",
    "variables": {
        "id": "<account-number>"
    }
}

Remember to insert your account number. The balance should then be at data > billingSummary > latestPeriod > data > closingBalance > pounds. A negative number looks to indicate in debit.

It should be possible to tune the query in the body to only pull back the desired information, but I’m not familiar with graphql.