Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool Price for February is currently $170.98/MWh. The cold snap has finally subsided and, as a result, we are seeing daily prices decrease. Unfortunately, the damage has already been done and February will end up with an extremely high Power Pool Price. Over the past week, prices have averaged $61.78/MWh, which is why we have seen a significant month-to-date drop of $42.97/MWh or 20.1%. We only experienced one volatile period over the past week, on the 23rd from 4pm MST to 8pm MST, during which the price averaged $324.54/MWh. Luckily, this was only one 5-hour window of volatility, which did not place too much upward pressure on pricing. Intermittent outages at Sundance 6, Battle River 4 and HR Milner prevented prices from completely bottoming out, as these outages represented a combined maximum generation capacity of 764MW.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is currently at 3.6¢/kWh for February, a slight decrease of 0.1¢/kWh or 3% compared to last week’s settle. Both supply and demand have decreased this past week, relative to average February levels, with supply declining somewhat quicker than demand (-4%, 17,638MW; -3%, 16,920MW, respectively). Keeping upward pressure on HOEP is a supply mix that’s still heavily drawing from expensive, natural gas-burning generation, despite nearly all generating sources decreasing their supply: gas (-22%, 2,135MW), nuclear (-4%, 9,074MW), hydro (-2% 4,551MW), wind (+14%, 1,776MW), solar (-9%, 60MW), biofuel (-11%, 42MW). Currently, with the first Global Adjustment estimated at 9.8¢/kWh and the first recovery rate estimated at 0.6¢/kWh, February’s total market price is 14.0¢/kWh.
In other electricity news, the rate cap for customers on a regulated price plan (RPP) has expired, after stay-at-home orders have been lifted for much of the province. Starting on February 23, 2021, winter Time-of-Use (TOU) rates are 8.5¢/kWh (off-peak), 11.9¢/kWh (mid-peak), and 17.6¢/kWh (on-peak), while Tiered rates are 10.1¢/kWh up to the non-residential threshold of 750kWh/month, and 11.8¢/kWh for additional consumption.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst / Sarah Clemente, Energy Data Analyst
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