Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool Price for February is currently $110.89/MWh. Relative to last week’s price of $94.28/MWh, this represents a marginal increase of $16.61/MWh or 17.6%. Over the past week, two daily settles placed in the top 5 of 2023; February 21st and 22nd settled at $328.01/MWh and $219.31/MWh, respectively, ranking 1st and 5th for the highest price of the year. Volatility for these periods is primary being attributed to inclement weather, as various parts of the province saw temperatures dip to between -30°C and -40°C. As a result, provincial demand peaked to over 11,000MW on the 22nd and 10,830MW on the 21st. Generator outages this past week included Battle River 4 & 5, Sheerness 1 and Sundance 6, all of which have since come back online.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is settling at 2.1¢/kWh so far for the month of February, no change over last week’s settle. Weather and recent temperatures have had little fluctuation, so the demand response of generators and prices have maintained similar levels. Natural gas-burning supply decreased by 4.3% (1183MW) over the course of this past week. Nuclear and hydro baseload generation lowered their output to an average of 9725MW (-1.2%) and 4522MW (-1.0%), respectively. Wind and solar dropped week-over-week output (-0.5%; 2274MW, -1.1%; 57MW, respectively), whereas biofuel-burning generation increased supply (+8.9%; 45MW). With the first Global Adjustment estimated at 6.3¢/kWh, February’s total market price is settling at 8.4¢/kWh as of today.
– Karyn Morrison, Energy Advisor / Clara Birch, Energy Data Analyst
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