Provincial power prices to fall but still higher than Medicine Hat’s new single rate

By Medicine Hat News on December 30, 2023.

medicinehatnews.com@Medicine Hat News

Power prices in the rest of Alberta are set to fall in January, but will remain at least 50 per cent higher than rates in Medicine Hat.

A new three-month rate for City of Medicine Hat customers will be announced Jan. 2 for the first quarter of 2024 after council approved an interim rate formula following record-setting price spikes in the summer.

It will be between seven and 11 cents per kilowatt hour, based on wholesale power prices in the province, after a decade of setting the local price at the provincial average of default retail prices.

Those rates for January range from 18.1 cents from Enmax to 19.55 cents from Epcor, for City of Edmonton service, according to submissions to the Alberta Utilities Commission.

For November, the interim local rate was set at 10.9 cents per kilowatt hour.

The city utility department will also move to a single-rate natural gas price on Jan. 1 after a billing policy change approved by council in November.

That will be based on the cost of gas purchased by the city for resale averaged over several months.

The average of default gas rates in Alberta would be about $2.11 per gigajoule in January, according to the AUC.

Local utility officials said in early December they were forecasting lower prices in the Alberta market due to milder temperatures during the high-use cold-weather months.

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