Alberta Power Snapshot - January 2025
We probably start to sound like a broken record - another month has passed, and we have another zero-dollar hour record. But it’s quite a special record!
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The Data
Many Januarys in Alberta have “special” price patterns, owing to the wild weather swings that are typical for this time of year (remember last year’s emergency alerts?). But this time, the month had something that not a single other January since at least 2005 has had - zero-dollar hours. And lots of them! But let’s begin with a macro-view on all hours of the month.
Heat Map of January 2025 hourly Alberta power pool prices
Vertical axis: hour of the day, from hour 0 on top to hour 24 at the bottom.
Horizontal axis: day of the month, from 1st to 30th.
Colors: Hourly pool price, with each block representing one hour
black - “zero-dollar” (CAD 0/MWh);
grey - “ultra cheap” (CAD 0.01-30/MWh),
light green - “cheap” (CAD 30-50/MWh),
dark blue - “normal” (CAD 50-70/MWh),
yellow - “expensive” (CAD 70-100/MWh),
orange - “very expensive” (CAD 100-300/MWh)
red - “extremely expensive” (CAD 300-500/MWh)
maroon - “peak prices” (CAD 500-1,000/MWh)
Lots of (very) low price hours, and very few expensive ones. The main reason? It was windy most of the time.
Average hourly prices came in at a (very) low CAD 30.36/MWh - the third lowest January average price of the last 20 years:
January average electricity pool prices, 2005-2025 (CAD/MWh)
Prices are not inflation-adjusted.
And since we are very interested in the lowest-cost daily 8 hours for dispatchable loads, those averaged just CAD 13.03/MWh - the lowest level since at least 2005:
Daily lowest-cost 8 hours, average for January, 2005-2025 (CAD/MWh)
Prices are not inflation-adjusted.
This finally brings us to the zero-dollar hours - since at least 2005, Alberta never had ANY zero-dollar hours in January. This year, we had 78!
This is not only a January record, but also 66% more than the annual record of any entire year between 2005-2023. It highlights just how much of a structural change the Alberta power market is undergoing right now. With a negative price floor expected with the Restructured Energy Market from 2026/7, most of those zero-dollar hours will likely end up in negative territory - turning these hours into a liability for inflexible generator, and creating extraordinary upsides for flexible loads.
Opportunities & Further Insights
If you would like to explore how to turn this development into a commercial opportunity, please do not hesitate to contact us.
For a more comprehensive overview of recent developments in the Alberta power market, including what is driving the dramatic increase in those zero-dollar hours (spoiler: this should not have come as a surprise to anyone), and what is likely to come, please see our “2024 in Review” and “The Change is Structural, not Cyclical” articles.