Enmax EasyMax - Fixed Vs. Variable

[killramos]

Someone something paying more taxes to fix the environment

Also gas prices were still quite high in december

[2Legit2Quit]

Good info/breakdown in this post

http://camroseenergy.com/blog/2022/0...al%20by%202024

Alberta’s energy supply market is indeed in crisis. Wholesale costs are spiking with increased frequency, and we have seen the Power Pool price increase by more than 100% over the last couple of years. Things will get better, and prices will return to normal by 2024. However, it’s essential to take a second to understand why. The closure of coal generation plants and conversion to natural gas has caused a temporary supply shortage. As coal plants convert and come back online, they also face increased natural gas prices (that must factor in the Federal Carbon Tax), pushing up the cost of generation.

The move by the NDP and UCP governments to support “greening the grid” has been applauded, and there has been an increase in solar and wind generation facilities added to the provincial grid. Alberta is moving quickly in its quest to decarbonize and invest in renewables. Today, corporations like TransAlta are one of Canada’s largest wind power producers and Alberta’s largest producer of hydroelectric power. At the same time, individual homeowners are investing in adding solar PV systems to their rooftops and taking advantage of the Solar Club benefits.

Although Alberta already has over 2200 MW of installed wind generation capacity, there is a crucial problem: Production last year ran at a rate of only 38% of available capacity; therefore, new battery technology solutions are now required. The wind doesn’t blow in the summer heat, leading to intermittent generation. The potential generation from green energy sources is simply wasting away – you can’t wave a magic wand and suddenly make the wind blow. In the short term, it’s wishful thinking that power prices will come down if the generation fields are sitting idle and baking in the sun. Moreover, you can’t cap the cost of production when wind generation is virtually at zero, and the Federal Government has increased the Carbon Tax. That doesn’t mean, however, that green generation is not worth the investment, as it does bring prices down when generation is strong and renewable energy sources are needed over the long term to help our society address Climate Change issues.

[ExtraSlow]

Cascade is good. I don't think power prices will ever come down.

[Xtrema]

So time to slap some solar panels on roof?

[suntan]

Since the solar panel manufacturers know the same thing you do, they'll jack up their prices to compensate for the fact that other sources of electricity prices are going up.

[msommers]

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I don’t understand why electricity here keeps rising. In the fall it made sense since natural gas peaked quite high and that’s the majority of our production but NG prices have fallen 67% since September so why are rates still rising?

@The Cosworth

[The Cosworth]

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@The Cosworth

I've been back on the engineering / design side for about 5 years now, so I am not as plugged into the market day to day as I was when I was in sysops. I also left Fortis so I'm really out of touch - so there might be a better resident market expert now. However that never stopped me commenting before!

So a few things that crossed my mind:

- The province is still growing like mad, especially in the industrial warehousing space. Lots of new load coming on with very little generation.
- The retirement of coal or conversion to gas. That's going to cause both downtime as the conversion takes place (I was working on the D-lines at Sundance about 4 years ago when they shut her down. Not sure how far along that is or what else new conversions they're doing).
- No new generation besides renewables. All the investment is going renewable - which is good when they run but also has the side-effect of less generation on the less windy or sunny days. Also, with less 'conventional' generation in the pool. I believe it still works by everyone submitting their bid and renewables are on a floater in the pool. So if the pool is bid at $40, when the renewables kick on they operate at $40. However with less conventional, the bid prices now go up meaning even the renewables make more money but the price overall goes up.
- Base stock materials going up like crazy. Some of the materials I used to order for $45k are now $130k. I assume that is impacting both the expansion of generation as well as the break even / bid costs.
- UCP removed some subsidies / caps which were keeping some of the prices down that the NDP either put in or extended.


It was inevitable this was coming. We don't have hydro / essentially 'free' generation once the infrastructure is paid back. Alberta is also still a place to invest and grow. We need to either start leveraging our neighbors (generate tons blue or green renewable and sell to BC so they can store, then sell back to us) or we need some form of storage technology. Otherwise this is just going to keep on going. The development community here is going nuts still, so there is definitely no shortage of demand.

Would love to hear from someone on a trading desk or at AESO or something with a perspective.

[ZenOps]

On a side note: Texas having grid issues again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/31/u...her-texas.html

[flipstah]

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Current fixed offerings are 12.99 cents/kwh or current floating is 27.5 cents/kwh

Gonna have to hope it drops or it’s going to get ugly when everyone renews.

I’m due for a renewal in April and those are my options too game over

[ZenOps]

Cold snap didn't even come close to winter peak of 1653 MW (Dec. 02, 2013)

Seems like adding more insulation and upgrades to heating efficiency have a slight decrease in consumption in winter. Summer peak is bigger and definitely growing.

Rebate for buying high efficiency air conditioning or banning low efficiency is probably on the table.

[mr2mike]

I'm assuming it's the a/c purchasing in the city in general.
80s to 2000's I knew 2 people with a/c in their home in Calgary.

Today, I probably only know 2 people that don't have it and only recent got it within the last 5 years.

[Kjonus]

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For you people (yep) that don’t know, Alberta is expecting a beast of a base load power plant to come online in the next 12–15 months.

Kineticor Cascade will be commissioning and blasting 900MW down the lines with reliable natural gas. Now - this could easily be offset if the remainder of coal comes off (800MW), but I’d be will to bet half of that will be retrofit with gas.

In closing - I estimate we will be net 500MW of additional stable power and will reduce our bills. To how much I don’t know, but if I see 7c/KW again with my easymax, I’ll lock in for as long as possible

Yes you are correct, Enmax is expecting and planning that the price of power to drop once Cascade comes online. We've been told that on the generation side its going to be a lean couple of years but they are relying on the distribution side to get them through the lows. If they can lock people in at a higher rate before the prices drop its easy money. But expect the locked in price to get lower once those 900MW come online in the short term. However the continue growth of load on the grid this will only be short term. With the generators having to install carbon capture which is a very costly build (in some case more then the construction of the plant that itself) and a heavy parasitic load to the generator. Depending on the age of the facility it might not every be worth the cost and there will be serious consideration on shutting down said facility. Which means there will need to be government subsidy and well you know what that means.....

[suntan]

NG prices down. Way down.

[suntan]

Carbon tax was about 90% of the cost of my NG this bill lol.

[ExtraSlow]

Need to get that to 100%

[suntan]

I bet Trudeau doesn't know that taxes can be higher than 100%.

[ExtraSlow]

Always strive for 110%.

[pheoxs]

The current schedule is 170$ per tonne by 2030. Which equates to 8.94$ per GJ of carbon tax ... going to be absolute bullshit for all the prairies.

It'll also add 37.5 cents per L to fuel. sigh.

[2Legit2Quit]

Seems legit. Good thing we're all millionaires here on beyond.

[mr2mike]

Plus we're all doing better than prior years. As per Toma poll.
Small price to pay for all our 1st world services.