Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool price for November settled to $100.07/MWh, a marginal decrease of $1.50/MWh or 1.5% relative to last week. There were no hourly demand changes in the province and, while the monthly price did not change significantly, there were periods of volatility in the last week. On the 29th, for example, the Power Pool price spiked to $624.62/MWh at 1pm MST, and settled at $187.72/MWh for the day. This daily peak stemmed from minimal solar and wind generation, coinciding with daily peak demand volumes. We saw pricing pull back to normal levels when wind generation returned to 70% capacity the following day. Intermittent outages at Keephills 1, 2, 3 and HR Milner caused some volatility near the end of the month, but elevated levels of wind generation helped suppress pricing.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) settled at 4.5¢/kWh on December 1st, representing a 0.5¢/kWh or 11% increase over November’s final settle of 4.0¢/kWh. The primary driver of this rise in price is increased usage of expensive natural gas-burning generators. Natural gas-burning generation contributed ~3,406MW yesterday, which is 87% more than last month. This uptick, coupled with high gas prices, is causing higher-than-seasonal hourly prices. Other than biofuel, which increased average supply by 27% to 78MW, all other fuel types decreased output, with nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar all falling (-1%; 8,610MW, -6%; 3,477MW, -1%; 1,833MW, -56%; 22MW, respectively).
With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 4.9¢/kWh and the first estimate recovery rate at 0.5¢/kWh, December’s total market price is currently settling at 9.9¢/kWh as of today.
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