Using data to help with Power Move

You should be able to see the kWh totals for each of those slots from your usage chart. You need to add them together for each qualifying day. 

If you note the kw rating of the appliance you can multiply that by the part of an hour it is used so an electric kettle on for 5mins at 3kW would equal 3 x (5/60) = 0.41kwh

The difficult part is something like a washing machine where the motor and heating element are only on for part of the overall time. Manufacturers do generally quote ‘typical’ energy usage

Eco programmes help a lot as they use either a lower power rating or use less overall. For each appliance, each manufacturer is different so you need to check but a tv generally is quite low (50-200 w). An oven around 3kW. A microwave around 1.5kw

The data stream only uploads every so often so there is a lag in the feed

As you might know, this is a forum mainly for customers to help each other rather than a direct channel to OVO

Hope that helps

Thanks Alex - very helpful.

Found “Energy Insights” with an estimated breakdown of electricity use for each week but, to be honest, it is not much use. Making my own estimates for each appliance (inc. EV and a kiln) is much more useful.

Finally found the half-hourly data on the website but I can’t see how to download it. Can anyone help with that?

Thanks again,

Simon

1. I monitor each day as im a low user and wanted to make sure i stayed on track.. When you are in the app click on usage at the bottom, change to electricity and then change to day. This will bring up a graph, underneath it click on table view. You can then add up the relevant 16.00 -18.30 figures and divide it by the total figure at the top. 

When i got my email ftom ovo saying how i was doing their % was lower and i worked out yesterday that by taking off 0.005 off of the total of the 3 hr period and also the daily figure i matched spot on as they are calculating to 3 decimal places whereas the data we are given is to two.  If you stick with the 2 at least you know you will come in under that figure. I was 0.2 out but then im a low user.

2. As others have said.

3. I find the preceeding days data trickles through so i tend to do my figures late afternoon/evening and they are all there.

Hope that helps.

Hi again,

Just a bit of info for people this time.

Since there does not seem to be an option to download your data on the Ovo website, there are (AFAIK) only two ways to get your data;

1. Sign up for an account with n3rgy (Google it) and download zipped files of meter readings or
2. Use a web scraper to copy the data from the Ovo website.

I am using the “Instant Data Scraper” add on for Chrome. It is very good but the format of the meter reading tables on the Ovo website (separate tables headed “Before midday” and “After midday” are awkward for it to read). I have created an Excel spreadsheet which uses the data to produce a graph showing daily and cumulative %age v target %age which I would be happy to share with anyone (similarly nerdy) who wants it.

Simon

Thanks for your tips. I too have found the n3ergy route the most straightforward, in my case using Guy Lipman’s excellent utilities which aren’t cluttered with the prettification some of the others are plagued with. They also seem to be ahead of the others I’ve tried, rarely more than an hour behind the time of use. Here’s a good starting point: Smart Meter Reports (guylipman.com) All kudos to Guy.

The data are readily available as CSV, for months at a time if needed. It seems simplest to start with a month or two’s worth, supplemented by a day at a time as the month progresses. I too use Excel to analyse and visualize the data. There’s an awful lot of it, so a simple spreadsheet of half-hourly figures soon becomes huge. It can be very rewarding, though, when you spot patterns that might otherwise not have been obvious. Here’s just a corner of my September sheet, showing the last two weeks’ numbers for 2 PM to midnight:
  

If you think that’s complicated, you should see the rows and columns I’ve hidden in order to make this image a bit more palatable! 

I’ve shown in the last two rows a comparison of usage in the three quietest hours with that in the target segment. I reckon that there’s nothing inessential running during the night, so there’s no reason why the afternoon figures should be very different if I try to minimize consumption then. There is indeed not much difference, so I must be doing something right. The one outlying figure - 0.069 kWh at 16:00 on 19 Sept - reflects the fact that I almost forgot to boil the kettle before 4PM to have a flask of hot water to keep me going for the next three hours. This just shows what a difference using a power-hungry appliance can make. 

A table like this makes it possible to create all sorts of charts, for those who find it easier to understand data presented visually. I’d be happy to help if anyone wants to pursue this approach.