Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool Price for January is currently $137.34/MWh. Relative to last week’s price of $147.17/MWh, this represents a decrease of $9.83/MWh or 6.7%. Over the weekend, and into the beginning of this week, prices averaged $84.36/MWh, with a daily low of $64.16/MWh occurring on January 23rd. Over the past couple of days, however, prices averaged $179.27/MWh, pulling the average weekly price up to $111.64/MWh. While hourly demands over the past week decreased by 186MW or 1.8%, intermittent generator outages at Mackay 1 and Sundance 6 placed upward pressure on pricing; these two generators supply a combined 607MW to the provincial grid.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is settling at 3.6¢/kWh so far for the month of January, representing a 0.1¢/kWh or 2.8% decrease over last week’s settle. Alongside a decrease in demand across the province, the grid’s need for demand response generation diminished. Natural gas-burning supply decreased by 3.0% (1938MW) over the course of this past week. Baseload generation, such as nuclear, improved output to an average of 9665MW, a 36.67MW or 0.4% uptick compared to last week. Hydro-based generation, on the other hand, fell 0.1% to an average of 4801MW. Wind, solar, and biofuel decreased output this past week (-1.9%; 1391MW, -12.3%; 20MW, -7.0%; 38MW, respectively). With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 3.1¢/kWh, January’s total market price is settling at 6.7¢/kWh as of today.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Clara Birch, Energy Data Analyst
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