Ovo Smart Gateway >>> associated with Smart Meters.

Hello all. My first posting here.

On Monday (with luck) Siemens will be calling to install my smart gas and electric meters on behalf of OVO.

I have opted for the Smart Gateway that talks wirelessly to the Smart Meters and plugs into a spare ethernet port on my router. I should then be able to read data on MyOvo.

Has anyone come across this approach to energy monitoring? I have found little information by Googling apart from some very basic FAQs on the Ovo site. Will I be able to monitor my solar export? Can the data be extracted for use with other systems?  

 

 

Sterlingtimes's picture

Re: Ovo Smart Gateway >>> associated with Smart Meters.

The Ovo Smart Gateway is now transmitting information via my router and displying the smart meter's grid import data on MyOvo.

Is there anyway of extracting this data for recording purposes?

 

Robert Wall's picture

Re: Ovo Smart Gateway >>> associated with Smart Meters.

I presume there is no web API available to you?

Short of writing a script, possibly in PHP, to run and periodically download the web page and parse and extract the numbers from there, or using a tool like Wireshark to monitor the traffic through your router (assuming it's not encrypted), then I don't know. There have certainly been some cutting comments in many quarters about the data from smart meters actually belonging to the consumer, and the suppliers' unwillingness to allow the consumer access to their own data in its raw state.

You could try asking how you can access your data (other than by reading the meter every 10s!) but I suspect your answer will be a deafening silence.

It may well be that you have no option but to end up installing a parallel monitor to record your own set of data.

Sterlingtimes's picture

Re: Ovo Smart Gateway >>> associated with Smart Meters.

Thank you for your help, Robert, I rather thought that would be the case.

I have a Wattson parallel monitor. That appears to be reading grid imported power at about 10% lower than the actual figure measured by the Ovo set-up. The Ovo site does not capture the exported power (although its smart meter does) which is a disappointment.

Regards, Sterling

Robert Wall's picture

Re: Ovo Smart Gateway >>> associated with Smart Meters.

I've just had a look at the Wattson details and, while it's not explicitly stated, there are a couple of things that make me think that it is only measuring current and doesn't use a voltage measurement. This has two effects on accuracy. Clearly, for most types of load, the current, and hence the power, depends on the voltage. For purely resistive loads (heaters), it will go down, so the real power will go down in proportion to voltage2, whereas current - and hence the indicated power - goes down in proportion to voltage. But computer power supplies and the like will likely be 'constant power', so current will go up as voltage falls, so in this case the real power remained constant while the indicated power rose. The second effect is that those computer power supplies, pumps, fluorescent and LED lamps won't have a power factor of 1, so real power is less than the product of voltage and current.

Shameless advert: get an OEM set-up!

Sterlingtimes's picture

Re: Ovo Smart Gateway >>> associated with Smart Meters.

Thank you, Robert

After some assessment, the Wattson is indeed far out from the true readings. You are absolutely correct!

The Smart Gateway provided by Ovo is providing some useful data with 1 minute granularity on results.

 

 

 

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