Time to give electricity the flick?

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166 posts

Master Geek

#1565158 3-Jun-2016 16:32

I managed to set up a rudimentary power price monitor and alarming system:

A cron job that does a curl for this page: http://www.electricityinfo.co.nz/comitFta/ftapage.main

and greps for HAY220 (Wellington region) and does a very simple parsing.

If price is hitting certain thresholds, a webhook triggers an IFTTT recipe that changes the color on a hue light :)

As for the power spikes in the last few days, I remember seeing something from flick (either email or notification, but I can't find it any more) about some maintenance work in transpower, I think, that will affect spot prices in the next week or so ...

timmmay

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#1565322 3-Jun-2016 18:32

droopanu:

As for the power spikes in the last few days, I remember seeing something from flick (either email or notification, but I can't find it any more) about some maintenance work in transpower, I think, that will affect spot prices in the next week or so ...

That was a notification in the app, but their notification facility is broken - click the notification it disappears. They know it's broken, they'll fix it some time. I think it said there was line work starting on the 7th, but I could be wrong.

TonyS071

57 posts

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Inactive user

#1565324 3-Jun-2016 18:43

When I spoke to the Flick Board member who called me a month ago after my last complaint about the app notifications not firing, she told me that the 30 min price was *generally* about the same as the second 5 min period price was. I took this to mean the first 5 min price was often pessamistic, and that the system sorted itself out after that.

I am sure there is more maths going on behind the scenes than that though.

luckiestmanalive

54 posts

Master Geek

#1565560 4-Jun-2016 09:50

Flick should provide two types of alerts:

1. a new alert based on the prices coming up (the grey bit on the today tab that appears on their website). The Choice app should have the today tab on it and that is where the text alert should take you when you click on it.

2. the existing one is needed but isn't very timely as it appears to arrive 10 minutes into the trading period!

The first alert would provide advance warning for Flickers to keep an eye on prices and a possible prompt to make alternative dinner plans! The existing one confirms price spikes that you've hopefully already been alerted to (although a price spike can occur without warning if a large generating unit fails or wind drops without warning).

I can confirm that the price we are billed is a half-hour price based on offers and transmission at the start of the trading period and metered demand. It cannot be calculated until the following day because metered demand isn't available until then. The prices are confirmed a day or more after that. It is not an average of the five minute prices that are published.

miked

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#1566790 6-Jun-2016 21:58

miked:
Response status
404 Not Found

Response latency

1861 ms

I'm assuming that isn't a good thing! And that is using their testing facility on their website (it worked once maybe - but not for a while). So unless I have triggered them to block my api key, then it looks like the api server is having issues right now. No wonder I couldn't get it to work externally from here... it won't even work from their own website!

Will try again later

When trying the API I'm still getting that 404 failure in response to the "try it" feature on GET page. Anyone else signed up to try it yet? Are you getting the same failure? Keen to know if it is their system at fault, or if I'm just doing something stupid!

I wrote them an email, so if the problem is at their end, hopefully they'll fix it soon.

If you haven't signed up for the API that was easy. You create an account, then add the realtime api. They then approve your request and you get access. I didn't do anything special, you just apply, and in my case got access a couple of hours later... so don't be put off by the bit saying you need to be approved.

Mike

miked

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#1566803 6-Jun-2016 22:32

Rappelle:

Where is the "Try it", sorry?

Make sure you are registered and have an API subscription key, and are logged in.

Go to here:

https://emi.portal.azure-api.net/docs/services/

Click: "Real Time Prices" (second item in body of page)

Click: "GET RealTimePrices - GET" (from left menu)

"Try It" button is a couple of paragraphs down in body of page.

Once on the "Try It" page, you can click "Send" and see the results.

miked

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#1567004 7-Jun-2016 11:52

Just had a reply to my email to EMI. It was broken, but they fixed it now....

Now to try playing with it external to their site. Have a simple dashboard readout in mind to start with.

Mike

miked

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#1567029 7-Jun-2016 12:21

Although I'm getting replies from the EMI api, I'm not convinced how up to date they are.

Ran the "Try It" routine at 12:09 and get results labelled Time= 11:30... 5 minute interval =1

That doesn't sound right, but who knows. Will read up more about what I should be expecting to see.

Either way, so you know what is returned, here's the full dump of the GET request made ar 12:09pm today:

Response - copied to pastebin for thread cleaniness

timmmay

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#1567032 7-Jun-2016 12:25

miked:

Either way, so you know what is returned, here's the full dump of the GET request made ar 12:09pm today:

Maybe you could post that somewhere external, or as an attachment, I see little value in posting the full text on the thread.

miked

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#1567033 7-Jun-2016 12:28

Yeah. Was already editing. I thought the [code] bbcode would handle it! but it didn't!

timmmay

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#1568390 9-Jun-2016 08:38

Prices are in for last Thursday's spike. I usually pay $7 - $8 per day for power, that day I paid $15. So while it's almost double normal my savings of $650 in the past year mean it's irrelevant.

Also note that power prices are meant to be higher than average for the next week due to line and generator maintenance. Keep an eye on prices in peak times, mostly 5:30 - 7pm, have heating come on at 4pm so it's just maintenance rather than full on heating from cold, consider turning off hot water heating during that time if prices spike.

kingjj

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#1569415 10-Jun-2016 13:43

Have been reading this thread over the last week and it's helped us make the decision to jump to Flick. Signed up on Sunday, had a call on Tuesday to confirm everything and advised would be moved in 2-10 business days. Received a call today from Contact with a 'special' offer to keep us, it was the exact same offer that they are currently offering on their website and that they tried to move us to a couple of weeks ago which includes a lock in until Oct 2018. She did admit it would cost more than our current rates and that the 'savings' over their new pricing would be minimal so I don't think she was surprised when it was a no.

I note discussion in this thread about the availability of the app/website (or lack off). It took me 4 hours when I tried to sign up to actually get through the whole process online. Since than I've been monitoring the site and app and it seems to be more stable however I've noticed issues loading info at peak times (early evening). Is this standard for them or a recent development with the jump in interest? I've been looking for a project with an arduino or r-pi for a while so thanks to those who have posted links to various projects that can be used to monitor prices.

Cheers,

A-soon-to-be-happy-flickster

timmmay

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#1569423 10-Jun-2016 14:00

App doesn't work on all my devices, but the ones it does work on it works on regardless of the time of day. This is on 2degrees fiber.

gchiu

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#1569681 10-Jun-2016 18:44

Does the app do more now?

Last time I installed it, it didn't allow us to download invoices, and the text overlapped each other so that it was hard to read.

TonyS071

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Inactive user

#1569685 10-Jun-2016 18:53

The app does some stuff in the real time, and their portal web page does more of the historic analysis (although both show the current power price) . The app ( or probably the database behind it) struggles to provide the price data at times. Oddly, at those times, the CO2 emission data is just fine. Must be a different database with less interest.

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