2024.11.3
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Amber Electric

Amber is an Australian electricity retailer that provides access to wholesale electricity prices. Customers monitor the wholesale price and shift their energy usage to cheaper, greener times. This saves them money and supports the shift to a more renewably-powered Australia.

Using the Amber Electric integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more], customers can go a step further - setting up devices to automatically shift energy usage to cheaper and greener times, based on real-time electricity prices and forecasts

Getting an API Key

To use this integrationIntegrations connect and integrate Home Assistant with your devices, services, and more. [Learn more], you will need to generate an API key.

  1. Login to your Amber account at: https://app.amber.com.au
  2. Click Settings
  3. Enable Developer Mode
  4. Click Generate API Key
  5. Give your API Key a memorable name (say, Home Assistant)
  6. Copy the code that is generated. Note: It will disappear after you reload the page, so make sure you make note of it!

Configuration

To add the Amber Electric integration to your Home Assistant instance, use this My button:

Manual configuration steps

If the above My button doesn’t work, you can also perform the following steps manually:

  • Browse to your Home Assistant instance.

  • Go to Settings > Devices & Services.

  • In the bottom right corner, select the Add Integration button.

  • From the list, select Amber Electric.

  • Follow the instructions on screen to complete the setup.

How the integration works

Prices are split up into three channel types:

  • General - This is the channel that records all your power usage from your lights and appliances
  • Controlled Load - A special channel that is only activated during off-peak times. Often electric hot water systems are connected to the controlled load channel.
  • Feed In - A channel that records exported power from solar panels and batteries.

It exposes the following sensorsSensors return information about a thing, for instance the level of water in a tank. [Learn more] for each channel type:

  • Price - Your current electricity price in $/kWh
  • Forecast - The forecasted prices for the next 12 hours
  • Descriptor - A description of the price. Useful if you want to create a Amber light that matches the app.

There are two additional sensors:

  • Price Spike - A binary sensor that indicates when the current price is over $3/kWh.
  • Renewables - The percentage of renewable energy currently in the grid.