Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool price for November is currently $93.10/MWh. This represents an increase of $7.1/MWh or 8.3% relative to last week’s price of $86/MW. For the first time this fall, average hourly demand reached 10,000MW, relative to last week’s average of 9,947MW. While November has been warmer than average, snowfall and colder temperatures have slowly started to settle in throughout the province, which caused a marginal increase in provincial demand. Furthermore, above seasonal temperatures experienced earlier this month meant the province was able to rely on renewable generation to help suppress pricing; when wind generation decreases, monthly pricing tends to elevate. This was evidenced by volatility on November 15th, when prices averaged $155.79/MWh and wind generation dropped to 37% of maximum capacity, relative to its 70% average seen the rest of the month. Intermittent outages at Keephills 3 and Sheppard Energy, as well as extended outages at Sundance 6, also contributed to some of the elevated pricing this past week.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is settling at 3.9¢/kWh so far this month, representing a 0.1/kWh or 2.5% decrease over last week’s settle. The primary driver of this slight price dip is the drop in natural gas-burning generation, as wind generation took a significantly larger stake in grid supply compared to last week; natural gas supply decreased by 5% (1,562MW), while wind’s cheap generation increased 36% (2,312MW). Nuclear, hydro, and solar generation all fell this past week, decreasing their average output by 3.0% (8,461MW), 3.2% (3,618MW) and 37.8% (38MW), respectively. Biofuel was the only other fuel source to increase output to the grid, increasing supply by 40.2% to 82MW.
With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 5.7¢/kWh and the first estimate recovery rate at 0.6¢/kWh, November’s total market price is currently settling at 10.2¢/kWh as of today.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst
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