Ovo Energy Integrations - how to configure properly on the Energy dashboard?

Third party integrations
#1

My energy provider is Ovo Energy and I have installed the integration.

It returns gas and electricity usage costs and seems to show yesterday’s values.
ovo

My problem is how to represent this on the Energy dashboard - some days it shows double or even treble the actual usage when you compare it to the values shown on Ovo’s own app.

HA seems to pull down readings one or more times in a day, and when it does it more than once, the energy dashboard doubles up.

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I have tried using Helpers with Daily resets, and a variety of combinations of the Delta and Net settings but not been able to get a consistent result.

Has anyone got it working reliably? Any pointers for me? .

#2

A wild guess would be that the data read from/by the integration returns 0 every now and then. Such a zero would be interpreted as a counter reset, and resulting in doubling the values.

Is there any trace in the logs about the integration that had a (read) error?

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#3

Thanks for the pointer. I looked at the logs and couldn’t see any erros, but I think I may have found something - It looks like the repeats are when I have restarted Home Assistant (I’m still playing with it so am doing that reasonably often)

Is there a way to force just one update a day?

#4

Actually, maybe that’s not it - I just restarted HA and it’s not duplicated.

#5

If you open up the history from those entities, can you see the value briefly dropping to zero around the time of the duplication?

#6

It doesn’t look like it - see below

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(The gap is because I had some maintenance on the NAS and stopped all containers)

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your help on this…

#7

Ah, I see. The graphs are supposed to only go up, and count the overal total accumulated usage.

#8

After some more inspection, it seems this graph is showing your daily usage instead of your overall usage. This means that every time you use less than the day before, it will assume it started from zero and sum it completely up again.

You might want to fiddle with Utility Meter - Home Assistant, maybe you can use this sensor als source for a utility_meter which can then be used in the energy dashboard.

#9

That’s correct - it reports yesterday’s usage.

I have been trying to get the Utility Meter helper to work, but it’s hit & miss for me.

I have been using “Daily Reset Cycle” and various combinations of the delta and net tick boxes but haven’t been able to get a reliable measure working. It seems that it collects more than once on some days.

The integration returns 8 entities
ovo entities

The Date of last readings do seem to be correct, only changing once per day

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Here’s an example of the Utility Meter which is daily reset, delta on, net off which shows that it reguarly adds in yesterday’s usage again

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#10

Hmm, that’s a bummer. I wonder whether your energy supplier would deliver the total sum or not, and thus whether it would be useful to create a ticket on the repo of the integration requesting such sensor.

The only other solution I can think of at this moment is making something yourself consisting of an automation that triggers when the start time changes, after which it takes an input_number and add the reading value to it and store the sum back to the input_number. Then this input_number can be constructed in such way that it can be used in the energy dashboard.

#11

Firstly, thanks for your time helping and for your suggestions - I am very new to HA and trying to work out how to do the automation you suggested, but currently failing :frowning:

I think I need to do the steps below:

  1. Create helper fields for a date/time “input_datetime.ovo_last_date” (to store the date/time from the end date) and a number field “input_number.ovo.meter_reading” to become the meter reading.

  2. Create an automation with a trigger of “sensor.ovo_last_electrictity_end_time” and conditions where “sensor.ovo_last_electrictity_end_time” is different from “input_date.ovo_last_date”

  3. The create an action that sets “input_datetime.ovo_last_date” to “sensor.ovo_last_electrictity_end_time” and adds sensor.ovo_last_electricity_reading" to “input_number.ovo.meter_reading”

Does this sound right?

I’ve been trying to follow the documentation and think I understand the triggers and conditions but cannot fathom how to create the action update the “input” fields using the output of the ovo entities.

Any pointers?

Thanks again

#12

You’re welcome.

You might not need the input_datetime, as I would think that when setting a trigger on the end_time, HA would do that internally, only triggering on a change. But if that doesn’t work, you’re indeed on the right track.

For setting the input_number, you can use the set_value service (see Input Number - Home Assistant ), and use a template as value. This template can then use the current state of the input_number and actual reading and sum them up. In the developer tools, you can fiddle with the templates.

#13

Thanks for the help. I’ll have a play around at the weekend and hopefully nail it :slight_smile:

Energy Dashboard and OVO Energy sensors
#14

I only got mine “working” by using the Ovo Last Gas Reading sensor in a Utility Meter helper and setting:

  • Meter reset cycle = No cycle
  • Delta values = Enabled

No other settings needed in the helper.

I now get a reading once per day at about 2am that accounts for the previous day’s usage. Obviously this is the previous day but if the value isn’t available until the day after, then that’s what I’m stuck with.

Assuming the value of the reading doesn’t change on Ovo’s API, it doesn’t record any other usage over the course of the day in the energy dashboard.

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