Shortly after the United Conservative Party won the general election in July 2019, the province’s new energy minister announced the government would cancel a planned overhaul by the NDP that would have introduced a capacity market to Alberta’s energy system.
Instead, it would stick with what the province has today, and has had in place since 1996 — an “energy-only” system. That’s a market where electricity providers are paid only for the energy they produce and sell, based on real-time market prices. By contrast, a capacity market would see providers paid not only for the energy they produce, but also to maintain additional capacity.
That could involve a fixed, monthly or daily
