Skip to main content
Gary
Rank 1
Gary
Rank 1
March 9, 2017
Solved

Can we get access to the OVO energy online account API to download our smart meter usage data?

  • March 9, 2017
  • 227 replies
  • 36557 views

Hi Ovo,

I wondered whether the API that powers your live and historical usage page in the account menu is something you could look into opening up a bit so we can freely access our raw data and also perhaps it may stimulate some interesting community projects?

For instance (more sport related), Strava and Fitbit.

    Best answer by g-de

    Updated on 14/08/25 by Abby_OVO

     

    Tim_OVO: “We love seeing the innovative ways our customers are using tech to help monitor and manage their energy usage. It’s inspiring us to think about ways to do energy differently. We know some customers have been using some of the application programming interface (APIs) behind our public facing services. While we’re OK with that, we do need to make you aware of a couple of things.

     

    These APIs are designed to be used by OVO teams only, and aren't public facing. There are some downsides to using APIs that aren't for the public, and we wanted to let you know what these are. Behind the scenes, OVO uses APIs to share and update information between systems that power your bills and your online account. This is done in partnership with Kaluza, the tech company that’s part of the OVO family. They’ve built the billing platform designed to put our customers in the driving seat of their energy usage. 

     

    These internal APIs are intended for use by Kaluza and its clients, who are energy retailers like OVO, rather than customers. Because of this, there’s no support for them being used anywhere else, which means they may be discontinued with no notice when we update our products and services. 

     

    OVO Energy and Kaluza need to be able to monitor these APIs, and may block access if there's any problems in the future.

     

    We know some customers may have put time and effort into developing solutions that use these API. So, now that you know the risks, we want to hear from you on how you’re using the APIs and the problems you’re solving with your DIY approach. 

     

    Is there anything you’d like to see from OVO to help you monitor and manage your energy better? Leave a comment below to tell us.”

     

    can you help me understand if the links above allow users to access raw data as if from an API?

    I can certainly give it a go.

     

    Firstly, big thanks to Timmo and other contributors for developing the library. All thanks go to them and links to buy them a coffee for their effort can be found on PyPi or GitHub:

    https://pypi.org/project/ovoenergy/
    https://github.com/timmo001/ovoenergy

     

    I assume the way the library was developed this was to reverse engineer the My OVO website. That is, browse the website as normal and and monitor the traffic to see what OVO URLs and APIs it uses. Assuming this is the case, one of these URLs (get account IDs) already seems to be different but the library is still working for the moment. The APIs being used are not officially supported outside of the website, so first, a warning that any changes to the My OVO website may break the library.

     

    For anyone using Python, you should be able to include the ovoenergy library and look at https://github.com/timmo001/ovoenergy/blob/master/ovoenergy/cli.py for how to use it.

     

    For replicating this in other languages, the process seems to be as follows:

    1. Login by sending a POST request to https://my.ovoenergy.com/api/v2/auth/login with the following JSON in the body: 
      {
          "username": "...",
          "password": "...",
          "rememberMe": true
      }

      From the response, save the cookies to use in all future requests.

    2. Next, send a GET request to https://smartpaym.ovoenergy.com/api/customer-and-account-ids . Be sure to save the items in the “accountIds” property (usually only one item).
    3. Finally, make a GET request to https://smartpaym.ovoenergy.com/api/energy-usage/daily/{accountId}?date={yyyy-MM} where {accountId} is the value from the previous request and {yyyy-MM} is the month in the format 2020-08.

    You can also get monthly or half-hourly usage using the following URLs similar to step 3:

    As mentioned above, if this is wanted for Home Assistant, the integration was added in version 0.114 (https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ovo_energy/).


    Unfortunately the data only goes up to the end of the previous day as OVO no longer provide real-time data:

     

    227 replies

    ThePaulAdams
    Newcomer
    ThePaulAdams
    Newcomer
    February 24, 2020

    For those interested in something like this being easily accessible I’ve made a terrible walkthrough of how to do so. hope you don’t mind me posting this Tim.

    https://github.com/ThePaulAdams/OvOEnergy

    https://www.thepauladams.com/blog/2020/02/24/ovo-energy-integration-to-smart-home-dashboard/

    https://github.com/ThePaulAdams/OvOEnergy/
      uvarvu
      Newcomer
      uvarvu
      Newcomer
      June 14, 2020

      @TerryE I tried to run your script but it’s erroring for me - something is wrong with the authentication.   Does the password field need to be in a certain format?   I left all of the quotes in place.

       

      pi@raspberrypi:~/Documents $ python2 energy.py 
      Date,00:00,00:30,01:00,01:30,02:00,02:30,03:00,03:30,04:00,04:30,05:00,05:30,06:00,06:30,07:00,07:30,08:00,08:30,09:00,09:30,10:00,10:30,11:00,11:30,12:00,12:30,13:00,13:30,14:00,14:30,15:00,15:30,16:00,16:30,17:00,17:30,18:00,18:30,19:00,19:30,20:00,20:30,21:00,21:30,22:00,22:30,23:00,23:30
      {"message":"No refresh token cookie or authorization header sent","redirect":"https://my.ovoenergy.com"}
      Traceback (most recent call last):
        File "energy.py", line 86, in <module>
          main()
        File "energy.py", line 78, in main
          ovo = OVOreadings(USERNAME, PASSWORD)
        File "energy.py", line 50, in __init__
          self.account = json.loads(resp.content)['accountIds'][0]
      KeyError: 'accountIds'
      pi@raspberrypi:~/Documents $

       

        Transparent
        Rank 20
        Transparent
        Rank 20
        June 15, 2020

        Can I point out that the “new” Billing Software, which is the connection point to our Smart Meters, is still undergoing development and bug-eradication. Any script which tries to lift data from the online Usage pages will need to be continually updated to match the current Billing Software version.

        To make it even more tricky, it’s becoming apparent that not all customers are running the same software version. See this discussion about the Zero-in option.

        My current Online Usage interface has changed further since that discussion. Not only do I not have a Zero-in Option, but there is no longer the ability to choose Yearly or Monthly from the Usage entry on the let menu.

         

        I’m afraid we’re chasing a moving target.

        Save energy... recycle electrons!
        T
        Newcomer
        TerryE
        Newcomer
        June 16, 2020

        … Any script which tries to lift data from the online Usage pages will need to be continually updated to match the current Billing Software version.

        To make it even more tricky, it’s becoming apparent that not all customers are running the same software version. See this discussion about the Zero-in option.

         

        Yes any script will need to be updated as the online interface changes, but I have only updated mine once in the last 3 years., and this latest one still works for me.  I don’t know about zero-in and am not interested as I have a near zero-energy new build and track all of my energy use through my own home automation system.

        As to @uvarvu ‘s Q I use a password keeper / generator for my online passwords which generates strong passwords and these will often need quoting using the r’’’password’’’ syntax as below:

         PASSWORD = r'''D#adR'xGFj{Ks";=$'''

        Also note that I have an electricity-only supply and the script may need tweaking for multiple supplies.

          G
          Newcomer
          g-de
          Newcomer
          August 27, 2020

          If anyone else is still looking for this, Home Assistant just added support for OVO in the latest release (0.114). Details on the integration can be found here: https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ovo_energy/

          This uses the “ovoenergy” library which can be found here: https://pypi.org/project/ovoenergy/

          The only problem is data is only available from OVO up to the previous day. I suspect there is some overnight batch process to format the data for the frontend.

          Edit: Actually it seems OVO turned off real-time data years ago as it was “unreliable”:

           

            Tim_OVO
            OVO Staff
            Tim_OVO
            OVO Forum Legend
            August 27, 2020

            Brilliant post here, @g-de - can you help me understand if the links above allow users to access raw data as if from an API?

             

            As you can probably tell, I am not very computer literate. I am however decent at communities, so this has sparked my interest in that I feel it might help potentially everyone who has commented on this topic. Give us some more info, and I might need to re-assign the ‘best answer’ to your topic.  :) 

            Carbon neutral - we need a community to get there! My green tech: Aclara SGM 1411-B smart meter, Chameleon IHD6
            Transparent
            Rank 20
            Transparent
            Rank 20
            August 27, 2020

            Well we could ask @Jequinlan to interpret for you @Tim_OVO :wink:

            Save energy... recycle electrons!
              G
              Newcomer
              g-deSolved
              Newcomer
              August 27, 2020

              Updated on 14/08/25 by Abby_OVO

               

              Tim_OVO: “We love seeing the innovative ways our customers are using tech to help monitor and manage their energy usage. It’s inspiring us to think about ways to do energy differently. We know some customers have been using some of the application programming interface (APIs) behind our public facing services. While we’re OK with that, we do need to make you aware of a couple of things.

               

              These APIs are designed to be used by OVO teams only, and aren't public facing. There are some downsides to using APIs that aren't for the public, and we wanted to let you know what these are. Behind the scenes, OVO uses APIs to share and update information between systems that power your bills and your online account. This is done in partnership with Kaluza, the tech company that’s part of the OVO family. They’ve built the billing platform designed to put our customers in the driving seat of their energy usage. 

               

              These internal APIs are intended for use by Kaluza and its clients, who are energy retailers like OVO, rather than customers. Because of this, there’s no support for them being used anywhere else, which means they may be discontinued with no notice when we update our products and services. 

               

              OVO Energy and Kaluza need to be able to monitor these APIs, and may block access if there's any problems in the future.

               

              We know some customers may have put time and effort into developing solutions that use these API. So, now that you know the risks, we want to hear from you on how you’re using the APIs and the problems you’re solving with your DIY approach. 

               

              Is there anything you’d like to see from OVO to help you monitor and manage your energy better? Leave a comment below to tell us.”

               

              can you help me understand if the links above allow users to access raw data as if from an API?

              I can certainly give it a go.

               

              Firstly, big thanks to Timmo and other contributors for developing the library. All thanks go to them and links to buy them a coffee for their effort can be found on PyPi or GitHub:

              https://pypi.org/project/ovoenergy/
              https://github.com/timmo001/ovoenergy

               

              I assume the way the library was developed this was to reverse engineer the My OVO website. That is, browse the website as normal and and monitor the traffic to see what OVO URLs and APIs it uses. Assuming this is the case, one of these URLs (get account IDs) already seems to be different but the library is still working for the moment. The APIs being used are not officially supported outside of the website, so first, a warning that any changes to the My OVO website may break the library.

               

              For anyone using Python, you should be able to include the ovoenergy library and look at https://github.com/timmo001/ovoenergy/blob/master/ovoenergy/cli.py for how to use it.

               

              For replicating this in other languages, the process seems to be as follows:

              1. Login by sending a POST request to https://my.ovoenergy.com/api/v2/auth/login with the following JSON in the body: 
                {
                    "username": "...",
                    "password": "...",
                    "rememberMe": true
                }

                From the response, save the cookies to use in all future requests.

              2. Next, send a GET request to https://smartpaym.ovoenergy.com/api/customer-and-account-ids . Be sure to save the items in the “accountIds” property (usually only one item).
              3. Finally, make a GET request to https://smartpaym.ovoenergy.com/api/energy-usage/daily/{accountId}?date={yyyy-MM} where {accountId} is the value from the previous request and {yyyy-MM} is the month in the format 2020-08.

              You can also get monthly or half-hourly usage using the following URLs similar to step 3:

              As mentioned above, if this is wanted for Home Assistant, the integration was added in version 0.114 (https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/ovo_energy/).


              Unfortunately the data only goes up to the end of the previous day as OVO no longer provide real-time data:

               

                Transparent
                Rank 20
                Transparent
                Rank 20
                August 28, 2020

                The whole issue goes away once OVO release IHDs with CAD via WiFi. So I can’t see anyone committing programmer time to it.

                Save energy... recycle electrons!
                Jequinlan
                Rank 10
                Jequinlan
                Rank 10
                August 29, 2020

                I Whatsapped my friend, a programmer, who likes little challenges, he is just getting back from holiday but read this post and reckons its under an hours work so it taking it on for me as a customisable and sharable dev! Fingers xed we will all ve able to download and analyse the info in detail!

                John Quinlan
                  Show more replies
                  Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement

                  OVO Energy Ltd, Floor 5, Crescent, Temple Back, Redcliffe, BS1 6EZ, (Company no. 06890795) registered in England and Wales.

                  OVO (S) Gas Limited is registered in England and Wales (Company No. 02716495) at Floor 5, Crescent, Temple Back, Redcliffe, BS1 6EZ.

                  OVO (S) Gas Limited is part of OVO Group Ltd