Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool price for March is currently $75.67/MWh. Relative to last week’s price of $74.31/MWh, this is a marginal price increase of $1.36/MWh or 1.8%. Pricing for the past week averaged $80.33/MWh, with volatility occurring on the 28th and 29th, resulting in average daily prices of $111.19/MWh and $128.27/MWh, respectively. Weekly pricing peaked at $291.91/MWh on March 29th at 8pm MST, alongside a drop in renewable (wind and solar) supply. Hourly demand so far this month has averaged 10,080MW, with the past week averaging 9,748MW, in line with seasonal expectations. Generator outages this week only occurred at two facilities, which included Sheerness 2 and Genesee 1, while we saw Sheerness 1 come back online.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is settling at 3.9¢/kWh so far for the month of March, representing a 0.1¢/kWh or 2.6% increase over last week’s settle. Despite this price increase, demand across the province decreased week-over-week, causing the grid’s need for demand response to diminish. Natural gas-burning supply decreased by 5.3% or 1,752MW over the course of this past week. Nuclear baseload generation also fell, decreasing its output to an average of 8,755MW, a 59.73MW or 0.7% decrease compared to last week. Hydro-based generation, on the other hand, increased output, climbing 1.9% to an average of 4,106MW. Wind increased output this past week, climbing 9.4% (1,874MW), whereas Solar and Biofuel decreased (-0.7%; -75MW, and -1.1%; -33MW, respectively). With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 5.5¢/kWh, March’s total market price is settling at 9.4¢/kWh as of today.
In other news, Bruce Power announced it has completed Unit 1 improvements and maintenance to increase the reactor’s capacity by 6 MW to 821 MW. As part of Bruce Power’s Project 2030, it will follow suit with the remaining 7 reactors by 2030 to raise the capability of the world’s 3rd largest nuclear power plant (behind Japan and North Korea) from 6,550 MW to 7,000 MW. Upgrades to Unit 2 (refurbished in 2019) will begin later this year. Unit 6 has been offline since January 2020 when Bruce Power’s Major Component Replacement (MCR) Project first began. Units 3 and 4 will follow with MCR in 2023 and 2025, respectively. Bruce Power has a contract with the Ontario government to provide power until 2060.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst / Grace Wilton, Senior Energy Advisor
Add comment