Power by the Hour (PBTH) turns Homey into a complete Home Energy Management System. Track power, gas, and water usage, forecast solar yield, optimize home battery storage, and automate appliances using dynamic European Day-Ahead energy spot prices.
Select a use case below for detailed setup instructions, settings guides, and community-proven flow recipes:
| Use Case | Core Driver | Detailed Guide |
|---|---|---|
| ⚡ Track Electricity Usage & Standby Power | Power Summarizer (power) |
→ README.power.md |
| 🛢️ Monitor Gas Consumption & Leak Alarms | Gas Summarizer (gas) |
→ README.gas.md |
| 💧 Track Water Usage & Dripping Taps | Water Summarizer (water) |
→ README.water.md |
| ☀️ Forecast Solar Production & Self-Consumption | Solar Forecaster (solar) |
→ README.solar.md |
| 🔋 Optimize Home Battery Balancing & ROI | Home Battery Manager (battery) |
→ README.battery.md |
| 💶 Dynamic Electricity Spot Prices (1H & 15M) | Day-Ahead Pricing (dap / dap15) |
→ README.dap.md |
| ⚡ Dynamic Gas Spot Prices | Gas Day-Ahead Pricing (dapg) |
→ README.dapg.md |
| 💻 App-to-App & HomeyScript Developer API | Inter-App API | → README.dap-api.md |
Get dynamic electricity tracking running in 3 simple steps:
- Add Day-Ahead Pricing: Add a
Day-ahead Pricingdevice, select your Bidding Zone (e.g.NL,BE,DE-LU,NO1,SE3,DK1), and set Tariff Update Group to1in device settings. - Add Power Summarizer: Add a
Power Summarizerdevice and select your P1 Smart Meter or main energy meter as the source. - Connect Tariff Broadcast: Set Tariff Update Group to
1in the Power Summarizer settings.
Your Power Summarizer now updates its electricity tariff automatically every hour based on official market spot prices!
To avoid repeating configuration steps across guides, key shared mechanisms are explained here:
Tariff Update Groups link pricing providers (dap, dap15, dapg) to consumer summarizer devices (power, gas).
- Assign a group number (e.g.
1) to both the pricing device and the summarizer device. - Whenever prices update or time slots change, the pricing device automatically broadcasts updated tariffs to all summarizers in that group.
PBTH compares real-time usage against annual reference targets using seasonal distribution models:
-
Linear: Equal allocation for each month (
$30.4\text{ days/month}$ ). -
Dutch 2023 Price Ceiling (
el_nl_2023/gas_nl_2023): Weighted according to seasonal heating and household consumption profiles. - Solar PV: Weighted according to typical European solar irradiance curves.
For source devices with non-standard capability names or split tariffs:
- Select VIRTUAL_METER during driver pairing.
- Push cumulative meter readings via a Flow using the action Update Virtual Meter Value.
- Pass total net cumulative energy: $\text{kWh}{\text{total}} = (\text{consumed}{\text{high}} + \text{consumed}{\text{low}}) - (\text{returned}{\text{high}} + \text{returned}_{\text{low}})$.
Power by the Hour integrates data from external market data providers and online services to retrieve spot pricing, forecasts, exchange rates, and chart rendering.
- ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity): The electricity pricing information is fetched from ENTSO-E.
- Website: ENTSO-E Transparency Platform
- Terms of Use: ENTSO-E Data Terms and Conditions
- EEX (European Energy Exchange): The TTF Gas spot pricing (EOD and EGSI) is coming from EEX.
- Website: EEX
- Terms of Use: EEX Terms of Use
- EasyEnergy / Nieuwestroom: The TTF LEBA gas pricing is derived from EasyEnergy as seen on Nieuwestroom Gas Handelsbeurs.
- Website: EasyEnergy | Nieuwestroom
- Terms of Use: Nieuwestroom Voorwaarden
- EnergyZero: Dynamic electricity and gas retail prices for the Netherlands.
- Website: EnergyZero
- Terms of Use: EnergyZero Algemene Voorwaarden
- Nord Pool: Day-ahead electricity spot prices for Nordic, Baltic, and European bidding zones.
- Website: Nord Pool Group
- Terms of Use: Nord Pool Terms & Conditions
- Open-Meteo: Solar radiation and weather forecast data for solar production forecasting.
- Website: Open-Meteo
- Terms & License: Open-Meteo Terms & Attribution
- Stekker.ai: AI price forecasting and smart charging optimization data.
- Website: Stekker.ai
- Terms of Use: Stekker Terms
- European Central Bank (ECB): Foreign exchange reference rates for multi-currency conversion.
- Website: European Central Bank
- Terms of Use: ECB Copyright & Disclaimer
- QuickChart: Online chart rendering service used to generate dynamic graph images for Homey devices and flow notifications.
- Website: QuickChart
- Terms of Use: QuickChart Terms of Service
Other Homey apps and HomeyScript can query prices or listen for real-time slot pushes via the PBTH Inter-App API:
GET /dap-prices— fetch all current future price slots.- Realtime event
dap-prices-updated— emitted on slot changes and price updates.
See README.dap-api.md for full API reference and code examples.
If Power by the Hour helps you save energy and money, consider supporting development:
