I recently had a tinker with automating websites. For those of you in New Zealand and haven’t signed up, you can sign up here and receive a $50 credit to your account: (disc. it’s my referral link) Electric Kiwi Signup
Though if you run Linux, here is a script that will allow you to set your free hour of power via the CLI. It could be useful if you want to set it via a headless server or have it connected to some button in the house.
You’ll need to install curl for this. Also don’t forget to give yourself executable rights.
chmod +x HourOfPower.sh
It’s a simple Command Line Tool, where it takes a single argument which represents the start time in 24hr format. It also checks and verifies that the change has been made and that the account matches your account number too.
To set it up, you need to modify the email, password and customer number to match your account details. You can find your customer number when you login to the ElectricKiwi accounts page.
This script does not save any information nor reveals any private information.
Enjoy, comments welcome!
Now just need a script that reads your usage from your meter and then at the end of the day sets the HOP to your busiest hour.
If only the government of the time had regulated to ensure the smart meters adhered to some open communication standards we would need to rely on these devices that clip a magnet around the supply wire to estimate consumption