Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool price for September is currently settling at $92.77/MWh. Prices have decreased by $11.77/MWh or 11.2% relative to last week’s price of $104.54/MWh. This type of market behaviour is expected at this point of the year, as cooler fall weather emerges and summer demand dissipates. Average hourly demand settled below 9,000MW over the course of the last two weeks, due to an average temperature below 20°C. Volatility over the past week was kept to a minimum, with only one hourly period settling to over $200/MWh, occurring on September 20th at 3pm MST when prices hit $269.71/MWh. There were several intermittent outages, including Keephills 1 & 2, Sundance 4 and Battle River 4, which would typically increase the Power Pool price but, thanks to suppressed provincial demand levels, prices were stable. In fact, pricing over the past week averaged $67.47/MWh, in line with market expectations.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) settled at 3.1¢/kWh for this past week of September, representing a 7.9% decrease over last week’s weighted average settle. With both supply and demand levels holding steady, this past week’s price swing can be mostly attributed to the current supply mix. Nuclear saw a decrease in supply (-3%, 9,585MW), which was subsequently picked up by wind generation (+22%, 1,564MW), causing a slight price shift while maintaining supply levels. Solar and Biofuel sources both contributed less this past week (-3%, 96MW; -52%, 22MW), which was countered by upticks in both hydro and natural gas-burning generation (+0.4%, 3,187MW; +0.3%, 908MW). With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 5.0¢/kWh and the first estimate recovery rate at 0.5¢/kWh, September’s total market price is currently 8.6¢/kWh.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst
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