Target premises (Western Sydney, Australia) has smart meters but the supplier has removed the ability to download the usage CSV file. Bastards.
I'm surprised you even had that ability!
How did it do that? Was it wifi or wired network connected or something?
Online account website. Origin. The CSV file was, up until recently, freely available when you log in to your account. Edit: The fuse box has a little cone shaped transmitter mounted to the outside.
If I may be permitted a rant. Some of you on the Eastern Seaboard may find this interesting.
Some time back, they wanted to change the meters from the old wheel ones to the smartmunts. I went along with it cos it was free and also made changing provider much easier. Or so I thought.
The CSV file consisted of all the manual meter reads every ~90 days going back years up until the installation of the replacement meters. From then on, the data consists of a reading taken every 30 mins and then all that daily information is sent, I understand, at midnight to a company called Acumen.
My grievance is that it was all working fine until about 6 months ago we get a message that there will be an upgrade to the facilities on the website. What we have had since is terrible. First thing to go missing was the link to download the CSV.
Then they came for the usage graphs. Now it's impossible to infer what the general rate usage is versus the control load (off peak heater). All KWhs are just one value, every half an hour. The previous day data now shows up after 2am. Did the hot water tank run for one hour or ten? I don't know. (Yes, I know I could go and read the meters.)
Why this matters. The power companies are trying very hard to shoehorn in TOU (time of use) rates instead of basic rates. It prolly won't affect our usage, but I cannot, in any serious way, compare our usage against any available plans one of which I will need to select soon.
The law says that the wholesaler (endeavour) must provide your usage info when asked. They did within 24 hrs. I got a PDF showing month to month readings. And some jagged looking graphs. Which is helpful but not really as useful as I hoped.
Of course, they said, use the App. I fired the App for the first time yesterday. Turns out the app is just a lame arse browser that displays a mobile version of the desktop website.
I think that they have wrecked the website intentionally. The technology is there for the consumer/customer to see plenty of info with much granularity but they have instead set about to hide it.
The fact is since the installation of the smart meters, which I got told we had to have, they now have much more information about our power usage and I have less. It is no accident.