Get price forecasts

Use this action to retrieve the price forecasts from Amber Electric for one of your channels, such as general usage, controlled load, or feed-in.

This action returns its result in a response variable, which you can use in later steps of the same automation or script, for example to start an appliance during the cheapest forecast hour.

Using this action from the user interface

If you prefer building automations and scripts visually, Home Assistant walks you through this action step by step. You pick what to target, tweak a few options, and save. No YAML knowledge required.

To get price forecasts from an automation or a script:

1. Go to Settings > Automations & scenes.
2. Open an existing automation or script, or select Create automation > Create new automation.
3. If you’re setting up a new automation, add a trigger in the When section. Scripts don’t need a trigger. They run when something else calls them.
4. In the Then do section, select Add action.
5. From the search box, search for and select Amber Electric: Get price forecasts.
6. Select the Config entry for the site and the Channel type to fetch.
7. Select Save.

This action does not support targets. In the UI, you are not prompted to choose an area, device, entity, or label.

Options in the UI

Using this action in YAML

If you work directly in YAML, or you want to know exactly what Home Assistant does under the hood, this section has the technical reference. It lists the field names you use in YAML, their types, and which ones are required.

In YAML, refer to this action as amberelectric.get_forecasts. Store the result in a response variable so you can use it in later steps:

action: amberelectric.get_forecasts
data:
  config_entry_id: 6b4be47a1fa7c3764f14cf756dc9899d
  channel_type: general
response_variable: forecasts

This fetches the price forecasts for the general channel.

Options in YAML

Response data

The response contains a forecasts list. Each forecast interval includes the following fields:

• duration: The length of the interval in minutes.
• date: The date of the interval.
• nem_date: The interval end time in National Electricity Market (NEM) time.
• per_kwh: The forecasted price in dollars per kWh.
• spot_per_kwh: The wholesale spot price in dollars per kWh.
• start_time: The start time of the interval.
• end_time: The end time of the interval.
• renewables: The percentage of renewable energy in the grid for the interval.
• spike_status: Whether a price spike is forecast for the interval.
• descriptor: A description of the price, such as low, neutral, or high.

A shortened example of the response looks like this:

forecasts:
  - duration: 30
    date: "2024-01-01"
    nem_date: "2024-01-01T12:30:00+10:00"
    per_kwh: 0.08
    spot_per_kwh: 0.04
    start_time: "2024-01-01T12:00:00+10:00"
    end_time: "2024-01-01T12:30:00+10:00"
    renewables: 45
    spike_status: "none"
    descriptor: "low"

Try it yourself

Ready to test this? Open Developer tools > Actions, search for this action, fill in the fields, and select Perform action. You see what happens on your actual entitiesAn entity represents a sensor, actor, or function in Home Assistant. Entities are used to monitor physical properties or to control other entities. An entity is usually part of a device or a service. [Learn more] without writing a line of YAML.

Still stuck?

The Home Assistant community is quick to help: join Discord for real-time chat, post on the community forum with the action you’re calling and what you expected to happen, or share on our subreddit /r/homeassistant.