Ontario Electricity: February 2014 Final Global Adjustment, March Initial Estimate

Ontario has continued its string of low global adjustment charges for electricity this winter. February's final global adjustment came in at a rather low of 1.33 cents per kilowatt hour. That was lower than the initial estimate of 2.23 cents, but slightly higher than January's 1.26 cents per kilowatt hour. That's a considerable decrease from last year's 4.81 cents.

Why so low? Probably because as in January it was really cold and people used more electricity, especially at night for supplemental heating (when the wind is blowing and wind turbine production is high). That combined with seasonally low production from expensive wind and solar producers produces a low global adjustment. It is a little strange that the February rate is so low compared to last year, however it has been significantly colder.

March's estimate is again really low in historical terms at 1.1 cents, especially compared to last year's 4.93 cents. Again March has been a lot colder than last year, so energy consumption should be up. April should be interesting as hopefully it will be considerably warmer with lower consumption and more production from solar should lead to a considerable increase in the global adjustment. Last April's was 5.86 cents.

Ontario Electricity Global Adjustment Watch: March 2013 Estimate

The global adjustment estimate for March 2013 is out on the IESO website. Curiously they're only predicting a value of 4.37 cents per kilowatt hour. That's strange because last year, the value for March was 6.23 and the highest for 2012. Also interesting is the estimate for January was 3.77 but the actual value ended up significantly higher at 5 cents.

Perhaps March is predicted as colder than usual so electricity demand from heating will be up and perhaps less windy and less sunny so expensive wind and solar production is down. March is usually a windy month, so it will be interesting to see if the IESO is right or colossally wrong.