URL: /howto/getting-started

---
title: "Getting Started"
description: "Fetch and display power generation by fuel type from the NEM"
icon: "rocket"
sidebarTitle: "Getting Started"
---

This guide walks through fetching a day of power generation data from Australia's National Electricity Market (NEM), grouped by fuel technology, and displaying it as a table. By the end you'll have a working script in either Python or TypeScript.

## Prerequisites

You'll need an API key from the [Open Electricity Platform](https://platform.openelectricity.org.au). See [SDK configuration](/sdk/configuration) for how to set it up as an environment variable.

## Install the SDK

<CodeGroup>
```bash uv
uv add openelectricity
```

```bash pip
pip install openelectricity
```

```bash npm
npm install openelectricity
```

```bash bun
bun add openelectricity
```
</CodeGroup>

Both SDKs read your `OPENELECTRICITY_API_KEY` environment variable automatically — no need to pass credentials in code.

<Steps>

### Initialise the client

The client handles authentication, request retries and response parsing. See the [SDK overview](/sdk/overview) for more detail.

<CodeGroup>
```python Python
from openelectricity import OEClient

client = OEClient()
```

```typescript TypeScript
import { OpenElectricityClient } from "openelectricity"

const client = new OpenElectricityClient()
```
</CodeGroup>

### Build the date range

We'll query yesterday's full 24-hour window so the data is complete.

<CodeGroup>
```python Python
from datetime import datetime, timedelta

yesterday = (datetime.now() - timedelta(days=1)).replace(
    hour=0, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0
)
today = yesterday + timedelta(days=1)
```

```typescript TypeScript
const yesterday = new Date()
yesterday.setDate(yesterday.getDate() - 1)
yesterday.setHours(0, 0, 0, 0)

const today = new Date(yesterday)
today.setDate(today.getDate() + 1)

const fmt = (d: Date) =>
  `${d.getFullYear()}-${String(d.getMonth() + 1).padStart(2, "0")}-${String(d.getDate()).padStart(2, "0")}T00:00:00`
```
</CodeGroup>

<Tip>Using yesterday ensures you always get a full day of settled data. Today's data may still be arriving.</Tip>

### Request power data

Call `get_network_data` / `getNetworkData` with these parameters:

- **`network_code="NEM"`** — the [National Electricity Market](/guides/networks) covering eastern Australia
- **`metrics=[DataMetric.POWER]`** — instantaneous generation in MW. See the [power guide](/guides/power)
- **`interval="1h"`** — hourly aggregation
- **`secondary_grouping="fueltech_group"`** — break results down by [fuel technology group](/guides/fueltechs) (solar, wind, coal, etc.)

<CodeGroup>
```python Python
from openelectricity.types import DataMetric

with OEClient() as client:
    response = client.get_network_data(
        network_code="NEM",
        metrics=[DataMetric.POWER],
        interval="1h",
        date_start=yesterday,
        date_end=today,
        secondary_grouping="fueltech_group",
    )
```

```typescript TypeScript
const { datatable } = await client.getNetworkData("NEM", ["power"], {
  interval: "1h",
  dateStart: fmt(yesterday),
  dateEnd: fmt(today),
  secondaryGrouping: ["fueltech_group"],
})
```
</CodeGroup>

### Understand the response

The API returns time series data grouped by your requested dimensions. Each series contains:

| Field | Description |
|-------|-------------|
| **metric** | The metric name (`power`) |
| **unit** | Unit of measurement (`MW`) |
| **results** | Array of named series, one per fuel technology group |

Each result has a `data` array of `{ timestamp, value }` pairs at the requested interval.

### Display as a table

<CodeGroup>
```python Python
# Option 1: Polars DataFrame
df = response.to_polars()
print(df)

# Option 2: Console-friendly records
for record in response.to_records():
    print(record)
```

```typescript TypeScript
console.table(datatable.toConsole())
```
</CodeGroup>

</Steps>

## Complete example

Runnable end-to-end scripts you can copy and execute directly.

<CodeGroup>
```python Python
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
from openelectricity import OEClient
from openelectricity.types import DataMetric

yesterday = (datetime.now() - timedelta(days=1)).replace(
    hour=0, minute=0, second=0, microsecond=0
)
today = yesterday + timedelta(days=1)

with OEClient() as client:
    response = client.get_network_data(
        network_code="NEM",
        metrics=[DataMetric.POWER],
        interval="1h",
        date_start=yesterday,
        date_end=today,
        secondary_grouping="fueltech_group",
    )
    df = response.to_polars()
    print(df)
```

```typescript TypeScript
import { OpenElectricityClient } from "openelectricity"

const yesterday = new Date()
yesterday.setDate(yesterday.getDate() - 1)
yesterday.setHours(0, 0, 0, 0)

const today = new Date(yesterday)
today.setDate(today.getDate() + 1)

const fmt = (d: Date) =>
  `${d.getFullYear()}-${String(d.getMonth() + 1).padStart(2, "0")}-${String(d.getDate()).padStart(2, "0")}T00:00:00`

const client = new OpenElectricityClient()
const { datatable } = await client.getNetworkData("NEM", ["power"], {
  interval: "1h",
  dateStart: fmt(yesterday),
  dateEnd: fmt(today),
  secondaryGrouping: ["fueltech_group"],
})

console.table(datatable.toConsole())
```
</CodeGroup>

## Next steps

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="SDK Reference — Python" icon="python" href="/sdk/python/overview">
    Full Python client API and DataFrame integrations
  </Card>
  <Card title="SDK Reference — TypeScript" icon="js" href="/sdk/typescript/overview">
    Full TypeScript client API and DataTable analysis tools
  </Card>
  <Card title="API Reference" icon="code" href="/api-reference/overview">
    Explore all available API endpoints directly
  </Card>
  <Card title="Guides" icon="book" href="/guides/networks">
    Learn about networks, fuel technologies, emissions and more
  </Card>
</CardGroup>