Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool price for March is currently $89.71/MWh, representing a significant drop of $67.18/MWh or 43% relative to February’s market rate of $156.89/MWh. Average hourly demand in the province has also dropped 6.4% to 9,937MW, compared to February’s average demand of 10,620MW. Furthermore, temperatures have returned closer to seasonal norms and, as such, we are no longer experiencing significant periods of volatility like we did last month. While peak volatility has decreased, the province is still experiencing elevated pricing periods, which is coinciding with higher demands and generator outages. Several intermittent generator outages over the past week, including Keephills 1, 2 and 3, Sundance 6 and Battle River 4, contributed to this week’s volatility.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is currently at 1.7¢/kWh for March, a drop of 0.3¢/kWh or 15% compared to last week’s settle. Supply and demand have both decreased this past week compared to average March levels (-2%, 16,077MW and -1% 15,834MW). Helping bring HOEP down is the continued decline of natural gas supply to the grid (-12%, 1,046MW), currently at its lowest average monthly amount since November. Most other sources also decreased their supply: nuclear (-1%, 8,553MW), wind (-4%, 2,181MW), biofuel (-25%, 34MW), hydro (unchanged, 4,165MW), solar (+6%, 97MW). Currently, with the first Global Adjustment estimated at 7.9¢/kWh and the first estimate recovery rate at 0.5¢/kWh, March’s total market price is at 10.1¢/kWh.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst / Sarah Clemente, Energy Data Analyst
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