Alberta Energy Market Report – Week of October 5-11, 2026

Week in one line: Alberta’s wholesale power price averaged $60.13/MWh for October 5–11 against $39.87/MWh the week before — up 51% — driven by four hours on Wednesday, October 7, that each cleared $600/MWh and peaked at $976.86/MWh. The median hour fell 18% to $23.06/MWh, and the 30-day average rose to $39.89/MWh. Get Energy’s variable electricity rate eased 0.22¢ to 4.68¢/kWh; it does not yet include Wednesday.

Reporting week: October 5–11, 2026. Published October 12, 2026. Wholesale data from AESO; gas reference pricing from the Government of Alberta; forward prices from TC Energy; retail rates from Get Energy’s live rate sheet.

Wholesale power: the week in numbers

Metric	Oct 5–11	Sep 28–Oct 4	Change
Average pool price	$60.13/MWh	$39.87/MWh	+51%
Median hour	$23.06/MWh	$28.24/MWh	−18%
Highest hour	$976.86/MWh (Oct 7, HE18)	$403.41/MWh (Oct 1, HE19)	+$573.45
Lowest hour	$0.00/MWh	$0.00/MWh	—
Hours above $100/MWh	19	7	+12
Hours at or near zero	2	5	−3
Average Alberta internal load	10,296 MW	10,001 MW	+295 MW
Peak load	11,054 MW	10,622 MW	+432 MW

The 30-day rolling average for the period ending October 11 is $39.89/MWh, up from $30.17/MWh a week earlier. The seven days that left the window (September 5–11) averaged about $18.50/MWh; the seven that replaced them averaged $60.13/MWh, which is why the rolling figure jumped almost $10 in a week.

What actually happened

Three days, and really four hours, made the week. Daily averages: $18.45 Monday, $62.27 Tuesday, $198.06 Wednesday, $72.81 Thursday, $12.11 Friday, $14.85 Saturday and $42.34 Sunday. All 19 hours above $100/MWh fell Tuesday through Thursday: six on Tuesday, nine on Wednesday and four on Thursday. On Wednesday, October 7, four consecutive afternoon and evening hours cleared $600/MWh — HE16 at $628.44, HE17 at $607.51, HE18 at $976.86 and HE19 at $944.53. Those four hours alone account for about 31% of the week’s summed hourly prices. Take them out and the other 164 hours averaged about $42/MWh; Monday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday together averaged about $22/MWh.

Demand did not set the price. Average load rose 295 MW to 10,296 MW, and the week’s peak load of 11,054 MW came on Friday, October 9, in hour ending 15, when the pool price was $10.99/MWh. Wednesday’s $600-plus hours ran at roughly 10,340 to 10,390 MW, well below that peak. When the most expensive hours arrive at ordinary load and the busiest hour clears near $11, the cause is on the supply side; we did not pull outage or wind data to identify it.

The floor thinned again. Only 2 hours settled at or near zero, down from 5 last week and 20 in mid-September. Sunday is a good illustration: not one hour fell below $22/MWh, and the day averaged $42.34 without a single hour above $100. Near-zero hours in Alberta generally track wind output, so fewer of them usually means less wind; the median actually fell 18% to $23.06/MWh, which tells you most hours were ordinary and a handful were very expensive.

Natural gas

The Government of Alberta’s natural gas reference price has run $2.46/GJ in January, $1.95 in February, $1.69 in March, $1.28 in April, $1.16 in May, $1.37 in June and $1.35 in July. July is still the most recent month published; no new month has been added since the September 21 edition. The series remains well under the $2.71/GJ that closed 2025.

We are now in the heating season. Last year the reference price went from $0.95/GJ in October to $2.04 in November and $2.71 in December, so November and December are the months that matter most for a household gas bill. TC Energy’s September 1 table put AECO gas at $1.61/GJ for the balance of 2026; that is a price on that date, not a forecast.

Where retail rates sit

Product	Rate (Oct 12, 2026)	Week over week
Electricity — variable (30-day avg, calculated Oct 5)	4.68¢/kWh	−0.22¢
Electricity — 1-year fixed	6.57¢/kWh	Unchanged
Electricity — 2-year fixed	7.97¢/kWh	Unchanged
Electricity — 3-year fixed	8.87¢/kWh	Unchanged
Natural gas — 30-day discount moving average (calculated Oct 2, includes transaction fee)	$2.88/GJ	+$0.23
Natural gas — 1-year fixed	$3.77/GJ	Unchanged
Rate of Last Resort (default)	12.01–12.06¢/kWh	Fixed to Dec 31, 2026

The variable electricity rate eased 0.22¢ to 4.68¢/kWh. It is a trailing 30-day average calculated as of October 5, so it includes the October 1 spike but not this week’s Wednesday. With the 30-day pool average up almost $10/MWh over the week, the next calculation is more likely to move up than down; we will report it as published rather than estimate it.

Fixed electricity rates did not move. Variable sits 1.89¢ below the one-year fixed rate of 6.57¢/kWh. The gas 30-day discount moving average rose 23 cents to $2.88/GJ, partly reversing last week’s 93-cent drop, and sits 89 cents below the $3.77/GJ one-year fixed gas rate. The default Rate of Last Resort remains 12.01 to 12.06¢/kWh — about 35% above our three-year fixed rate and more than double our current variable rate — and it does not move with the pool price.

Forward market and load growth

TC Energy had not published an October Alberta power market update as of October 12, so the most recent forward table is still the September edition, indicative as of September 1, 2026: 2027 flat (7×24) at $40.66/MWh, 2028 at $55.81/MWh and 2029 at $71.46/MWh, with AECO gas at $1.93, $2.40 and $2.46/GJ. These figures are unchanged from the last two editions; we will update them when the next table is out.

These are the prices at which term power could be bought on that date, not a forecast. The 2027 figure sits close to what the pool has averaged over the last 30 days ($39.89/MWh); 2028 and 2029 sit well above it, in the years large new load is expected to begin connecting. Data-centre requests on the AESO queue remain far larger than the province’s all-time peak demand of about 13,000 MW, and the AESO’s interim limit for new large load remains far below the requested total. Requests are not approvals.

Regulatory and market news

• Edmonton raises its electricity franchise fee for 2027. On October 6, Edmonton City Council voted 8–5 to raise the EPCOR distribution franchise fee from 17.65% to 19.4% (administration had proposed 20%, the maximum the AUC allows), according to CBC News. The fee is a percentage of distribution charges, so it applies to every EPCOR customer in Edmonton regardless of retailer or rate plan. The City’s report put the typical home’s fee at $9.06 a month; scaling to 19.4% works out to roughly 90 cents a month more (our estimate, not the City’s). The change is to be filed with the AUC by December 17 and takes effect January 1, 2027.
• Emera and Canadian Utilities agree to merge. On October 6, Emera, ATCO and Canadian Utilities announced an agreement to combine Emera and Canadian Utilities, the owner of ATCO Electric and ATCO Gas and Pipelines. The deal needs shareholder, court and regulatory approvals, including the AUC, and the companies expect it to close in the third or fourth quarter of 2027. Delivery rates in ATCO service areas continue to be set by the AUC; nothing changes on bills now.
• REM to launch without a real-time ramping-reserve deliverability constraint. RTO Insider reported on October 8 that the AESO plans to launch the Restructured Energy Market without a real-time deliverability constraint for its 30-minute ramping reserve product, and cited Market Surveillance Administrator data showing transmission constraints led to curtailment of wind and solar generation in 65% of hours in Q2 2026, up from 54% a year earlier. The first REM ISO rules stakeholder session was held October 6; written feedback is due October 16. This is market-design work and does not change residential rates.
• Alberta Time. AESO feedback on its Alberta Time administrative amendments closed October 9. Clocks do not fall back on November 1, 2026, so there will be no repeated hour in pool-price data this fall.
• Rate of Last Resort. Unchanged at 12.01 to 12.06¢/kWh and fixed through December 31, 2026. Rates for the January 1, 2027 – December 31, 2028 term must be filed with the AUC at least 30 days before January 1, 2027.
• We found no new AUC decision affecting residential energy rates this week.

What this means if your contract is up

The variable rate is still well below every fixed option: 4.68¢/kWh variable against 6.57¢/kWh for one year, 7.97¢/kWh for two and 8.87¢/kWh for three. But this week shows what sits behind a trailing average. Four hours on one Wednesday account for roughly $19/MWh of the $60.13 weekly pool average, and the 30-day average the variable rate is built from rose by almost a third in seven days. The rate you see today describes September; October is now showing up in the data.

The trade-off is unchanged. Variable has been the lower rate and moves with the market, including weeks like this one. Fixed costs more today and does not move for its term. On gas, the floating rate at $2.88/GJ is 89 cents below the $3.77/GJ fixed rate, and gas prices have historically climbed from October into December.

The default Rate of Last Resort at 12.01 to 12.06¢/kWh sits above every other option in the table, and its next two-year term will be filed this fall.

We publish this report every Monday. The reasoning behind the fixed-or-variable decision is set out in fixed vs variable electricity rates in Alberta, and current rates are always on our rates page.

Sources

• AESO market and system reporting — hourly pool price and Alberta internal load, September 5 – October 11, 2026. Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• Government of Alberta — Alberta natural gas reference price — monthly $/GJ series through July 2026. Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• TC Energy — Alberta power market update, September 2026 — forward price table indicative as of September 1, 2026; no October update on the newsletter index as of retrieval. Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• CBC News — Edmontonians could face higher power bills after city council votes to raise electricity franchise fee (October 6, 2026) and City of Edmonton — report FS03704, EPCOR Electric Distribution Franchise Fee Adjustment. Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• Emera, Canadian Utilities and ATCO — news release (October 6, 2026). Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• RTO Insider — AESO to Launch New Market Without Ramping-reserve Deliverability Constraint (October 8, 2026) and AESO Engage — Restructured Energy Market (REM) ISO Rules. Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• AESO Engage — Alberta Time Change Administrative Amendments and Government of Alberta — Alberta’s new time system (ABT). Retrieved October 12, 2026.
• Utilities Consumer Advocate — default rates — Rate of Last Resort 12.01–12.06¢/kWh to December 31, 2026; AUC Decision 29204-D02-2025 (2027–2028 filing requirement). Retrieved October 12, 2026.

Get Energy is a competitive retailer in Alberta, a tradename of Utility Network & Partners Inc.