Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool price for August is currently $100.87/MWh. Relative to last week’s price of $104.60/MWh, this represents a further decrease of $3.73/MWh or 3.6%. Average hourly demand settled to 9,533MW last week, just 0.4% higher than the current demand of 9,494MW. Pricing volatility was relatively low, with most of the activity occurring on the 12th and 13th, when prices averaged $170.47/MWh, stemming from elevated temperatures reaching over 30°C in parts of the province. Subsequently, pricing averaged $63.74/MWh over the next 5 days, which helped lower the monthly price. Minimal generator outages and a return to seasonal temperatures in the low-to-mid 20°C range has also helped stabilize the market.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is at 3.6¢/kWh for the month of August, an increase of 0.2¢/kWh or 6% compared to last week’s settle. This slight uptick in price is mostly caused by a shift from renewable generation sources to natural gas. While supply and demand this past week have both increased 1% compared to average August levels (17,302MW and 16,600MW, respectively), the supply of gas has increased 15% (2,430MW); all other sources of supply have either remained stable or decreased – nuclear (unchanged, 10,210MW), hydro (-1%, 3,725MW), wind (-12%, 791MW), solar (-7%, 111MW), and biofuel (-30%, 34MW). With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 8.1¢/kWh and the first estimate recovery rate at 0.6¢/kWh, August’s total market price is 12.3¢/kWh.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst / Sarah Clemente, Energy Data Analyst
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