Alberta Power Snapshot - April 2025
Spring has sprung - or at least, it’s starting to get there in terms of ambient temperatures and higher solar radiation. The snow melt & freshet are only in the early phase though. Where did this leave the Alberta power market in April?
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The Data
April is an interesting month, as it tends to be almost as windy as in winter, but with significantly higher solar radiation. With the recent rapid build out in renewable power capacity, this should result in higher generation. And Suncor’s new 800MW Cogen facility at Base Plant continued its ramp-up, reaching over 740MW output on April 17th (see Dispatcho for details).
Here is the big picture for hourly prices in April:
Heat Map of April 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)
Compared to March, the chart is certainly more colorful due to a return of price volatility, though it is still lacking the “peak price” bracket north of CAD 500/MWh. And overall, the lowest cost segments dominate.
This resulted in an average monthly price of CAD 33.69/MWh, the lowest level since 2020 and the 7-lowest level for April since 2005:
April average electricity pool prices, 2005-2025 (CAD/MWh)
Prices are not inflation-adjusted
This would not really be news-worthy though, if it wasn’t for the changed distribution of hourly prices.
The average was driven by the extremely low prices during some parts of the day, more than compensating for the price spikes we saw in the hourly price heat map above. The lowest-cost daily 8 hours averaged only CAD 13.60/MWh for the month, just over 1 cent per kWh, the second-lowest level for April since 2005:
Daily lowest-cost 8 hours, average for April, 2005-2025 (CAD/MWh)
Prices are not inflation-adjusted.
And this was again driven by the steep increase in zero-dollar hours, which was in turn driven by increased inflexible generation creating intermittent excess supply. We saw 55 zero-dollar hours, up from a prior record of 8 in 2024 for the month of April:
Monthly zero-dollar hours for April, 2005-2025
Since the market change is structural, not cyclical, we maintain our expectation of around 1,000 zero-dollar hours in 2025 - year to date, we stand at 204.
What does this mean for market participants, given the structural nature of the changes? Big challenges for inflexible generation, and increasingly interesting opportunities for large power consumers, especially those with flexible loads. And on top of that, the design of the Restructured Energy Market (REM) is getting finalized in Q2, bringing significant changes for both generators and consumers.
If you are an industrial power user in Alberta looking for ways to convert these challenges into an opportunity, or just trying to understand what this all will mean for your business, please get in touch!