Alberta’s weighted average Power Pool Price for May settled at $121.84/MWh; relative to last week’s price of $121.08/MWh, this represents a minor increase of $0.76/MWh or 0.6%. Prices were trending down in earlier parts of the week, where prices averaged $77.71/MWh between the 28th and 30th, with minimal market volatility and off-peak pricing settling to sub $60/MWh. Prices then spiked to $243.31/MWh on May 31st, which increased the Power Pool price over the past week from $101.69/MWh to $125.10/MWh. Demand had no impact on the volatility in the market, as we experienced a decrease in hourly demand. The market volatility was mainly attributed to extremely minimal levels of renewable generation on the 31st. Intermittent outages at Keephills 2, HR Milner and an extended outage at Path 83 intertie also contributed to some of the volatility near the end of the month.
The weighted average Hourly Ontario Energy Price (HOEP) is currently at 5.2¢/kWh for the month of June, representing a 1.8¢/kWh or 34.9% increase over last month’s settle. The primary driver of this price hike is the increased use of demand response generators, which are typically expensive natural gas-burning generation. Natural gas-burning generation supply increased by 50.9% (1,463MW) over the course of this past week, while base-load generation such as nuclear and hydro both increased their output by 23.1% (9,645MW) and 3.6% (5,240MW), respectively. Wind also increased output this past week, climbing 11.8% (1,441MW). Solar and Biofuel on the other hand decreased output by 44.8% (-61MW) and 26.2% (-14MW), respectively. With the first Global Adjustment estimate at 8.3¢/kWh, June’s total market price is currently 13.5¢/kWh, as of today.
– Mark Ljuckanov, Energy Advisor / Ryan Cosgrove, Energy Data Analyst
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