Can I access downloadable usage data for prior year?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 11, 2024
15 replies
425 views

I asked support if they could provide hourly or ½ hourly gas usage date for the prior year as I need this for analysis for optimizing a heat pump set up. They informed me they only have it by day. I am currently embarking on the arduous task of copying and pasting this from the online usage data into an EXCEL file day by day!! Has anyone else asked for a similar data file or found a easy way to extract this data?

Best answer by Firedog

They’re all there (with greater precision) if you know where to look!

Sadly, though, only for one day at a time as far as I can tell. If you know your way around Excel, you may be able to reduce that painful C&P process (which you can’t rely on anyway, because the web pages include a summertime fudge that distorts the results).

The data - in JSON format - for any day since your smart meter was installed are here:

smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/usage/api/half-hourly/nnnnnnn?date=yyyy-mm-dd

where nnnnnnn is your OVO account no. To get access to the page, open a new browser session, visit OVO Portal and sign in to your account. Then open the API page in a new tab in the same session (OK for Edge and Chrome - I can’t say whether it works or not in any other browser. I think both browsers have a built-in JSON prettifier so you don’t just see an impenetrable block of code). Beware that the sign-in only lasts for 30 minutes.

I’m really lazy, but finger memory has got each day’s activity down to a few moments. I just copy the whole JSON page and paste it into an Excel sheet where I have a macro that filters and sorts and pastes the interesting data into two columns, Date and kWh, ready to paste the usage figures wherever I want them.

PM me if you’d like a bit of help.

It looks like some of the third-party utilities that make this even easier are having trouble these days: n3rgy data - accessing smart energy data

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A

Anonymous

Thanks @Firedog for the tip on how to get daily JSON data. Am I right in thinking that the timestamps are always in UTC (or GMT as we know it)?

Firedog

Super User

Am I right in thinking that the timestamps are always in UTC (or GMT as we know it)?

[for certain values of we!]

Yes. Have a look at the hours bit of the timestamp on the first entries on 26 October and 28 October. You should see 2024-10-2nT00:00:00.000 in both cases, so it doesn’t change with the clocks. This makes sense: there are precisely 48 half-hour buckets each day throughout the year.

Compare with the timestamp (“readingDateTime”) on the meter readings page smartpaymapi.ovoenergy.com/orex/api/meter-readings/nnnnnnn; you should see a one-hour shift popping up at the clock change. Times prior to this are local midnight, shown as 2024-10-2nT01:00:00.000. So while there are 48 half-hours’-worth of usage data on ‘27’ October, there are apparently only 46 half hours between meter readings. This of course plays havoc with anyone trying to align usage data and meter readings, and I’ve no idea how suppliers offering ToU tariffs cope with the difference. I expect with mixed success.

E&OE, as usual: it’s easy to go bog-eyed trying to make sense of this 🙂

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |

Firedog

Super User

Has anyone else asked for a similar data file or found a easy way to extract this data?

I’m ashamed to say that I quite forgot about @MikeWilliams’ excellent little utility. It’s a long time since I tested it, but if you’re a Windows user, it might do just what you want in one fell swoop: Release Release 1.0.2 · MikeWilliams-UK/My-Ovo-Data · GitHub

Of course, the OVO devs keep changing stuff without telling anybody, but give it a go.

MikeWilliams wrote:

I have just published my application which fetches your data and stores it in a local SQLite database on your PC. It can also export the data to CSV and Excel files, to allow easy anaylsis. Just download the zip file and unzip it’s contents to any folder, then run OvoData.exe

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |

Firedog

Super User

[cont.]

I just tried this version. It works, and it quickly produced a simple CSV file with every half-hour’s usage to three decimal places from the date my first smart meter was installed in 2017 to yesterday, 133,000 lines of data.

Once you’ve entered your username and password (and selected the appropriate account if there’s more than one), select a period. I went for All time just to see how much was retrieved. Then click Read. You’ll see a progress report as the utility fetches the data. Once it’s finished, select Export. I used the CSV option; it looks like the Excel option has some limitations I could do without, but by all means check what it produces.

In general, once the historical data are in place, it’s easy to grab a single day’s JSON data to keep the whole lot up to date.

Noel | I have no official status; I'm just a volunteer who comes here to help other customers. My gear: Aclara SGM 1416-B Electricity-only E7 meter; Chameleon IHD3-PPMID-AAA | It may look as if I know what I’m talking about, but don’t let that fool you. |