Alberta Energy Market Report – Week of September 21-27, 2026

Week in one line: Alberta’s wholesale power price averaged $25.60/MWh for September 21 – 27 against $38.57/MWh the week before — down 34% — and for the second time this month not one hour cleared $100/MWh. Get Energy’s variable electricity rate eased to 6.53¢/kWh, now level with the one-year fixed rate, and the forward curve for 2027–2029 moved lower in TC Energy’s September update.

Reporting week: September 21 – 27, 2026. Published September 28, 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	Sep 21–27	Sep 14–20	Change
Average pool price	$25.60/MWh	$38.57/MWh	−34%
Median hour	$20.73/MWh	$24.46/MWh	−15%
Highest hour	$95.12/MWh (Sep 24, HE7)	$715.78/MWh (Sep 17, HE20)	−$620.66
Lowest hour	$0.00/MWh	$0.00/MWh	—
Hours above $100/MWh	0	6	−6
Hours at or near zero	7	20	−13
Average Alberta internal load	9,866 MW	9,734 MW	+132 MW
Peak load	10,877 MW	10,513 MW	+364 MW

The 30-day rolling average for the period ending September 27 is $30.10/MWh, down from $42.50/MWh a week earlier. That is the biggest weekly drop in the rolling average since these editions began, and most of it is arithmetic: the expensive August 24–26 stretch has now left the 30-day window entirely.

What actually happened

A narrow week. Daily averages: $9.46 Monday, $20.97 Tuesday, $39.72 Wednesday, $48.12 Thursday, $18.83 Friday, $13.97 Saturday and $28.11 Sunday. The most expensive day of the week, Thursday, came in below last week’s Tuesday. The single highest hour was $95.12/MWh at hour ending 7 on Thursday morning — the morning ramp rather than the evening one, and less than a seventh of last week’s peak.

The week had a different shape from the one before. Last week was a low floor punctured by a few very expensive evening hours. This week the spikes disappeared but the floor rose: only 7 hours settled at or near zero, against 20 the week before. Near-zero hours in Alberta generally track wind output, so the drop points to a less windy week; we did not pull generation data to confirm that. The result was prices bunched in a tighter band, with the median down 15% and the average down 34% — the gap between the two narrowed from about $14 to under $5.

Demand rose. Average load was up 132 MW to 9,866 MW and peak load up 364 MW to 10,877 MW, consistent with cooler mornings and evenings arriving. Higher load and a cheaper week together say supply was comfortable: when enough low-cost units are available through the ramps, the pool does not need the expensive ones.

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 last week’s edition. The series sits well under the $2.71/GJ that closed 2025.

The forward market points the same way for now. TC Energy’s September 1 table put AECO gas at $1.17/GJ for October and $1.61/GJ for the balance of 2026. Heating season is the test: gas demand rises through October and November, and last year the reference price went from $0.95 in October to $2.04 in November. For a household budget the winter months are the ones that count.

Where retail rates sit

Product	Rate (Sep 28, 2026)	Week over week
Electricity — variable (30-day avg, calculated Sep 21)	6.53¢/kWh	−0.23¢
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 Sep 18, includes transaction fee)	$3.58/GJ	−$0.03
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 fell 0.23¢ to 6.53¢/kWh. It is a trailing 30-day average calculated as of September 21, so it now includes last week’s $715 hour but has dropped the late-August spike days, and the second effect was larger. This week’s cheaper prices are not in it yet.

Fixed electricity rates did not move. Variable is now 0.04¢ below the one-year fixed rate of 6.57¢/kWh — effectively level — after sitting 0.49¢ and then 0.19¢ above it in the last two editions. The gas 30-day discount moving average slipped 3 cents to $3.58/GJ, 19 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 80% above our variable and one-year fixed rates, and it does not move with the pool price.

Forward market and load growth

TC Energy published its September Alberta power market update, with forward prices indicative as of September 1, 2026. It put the 2027 flat (7×24) forward at $40.66/MWh, 2028 at $55.81/MWh and 2029 at $71.46/MWh. In the August update (indicative August 4) the same years were $45.02, $64.29 and $80.39/MWh, so each year was quoted between about $4 and $9/MWh lower a month later. AECO gas forwards were $1.93, $2.40 and $2.46/GJ for 2027–2029. The same update reports August 2026 settled at $45.71/MWh, with the top 10% of hours contributing 56% of the monthly average.

These are the prices at which term power could be bought on that date, not a forecast of where the pool will settle. The shape has not changed: 2027 is priced close to what the market has actually been doing this year, and 2028 and 2029 sit well above it — the years in which large industrial and data-centre load is expected to begin connecting. The Government of Alberta’s data-centre site lists roughly 19,565 MW of data-centre load on the AESO’s large-load connection list as of July 30, 2026; those are requests, not approvals.

Regulatory and market news

• AESO opened engagement on revisions to the REM ISO Rules and ISO Manuals. On September 21 the AESO launched the stakeholder engagement for revisions to the Restructured Energy Market rules approved in March, and posted the first window of proposed changes, covering nine rules including pool participant registration, real-time market offers and bids, and the 30-minute ramping reserve. A stakeholder session is set for October 6, written feedback is due October 16, and the AESO expects to respond by November 30. This is market-participant rule work; it does not change residential rates.
• Capital Power says the Meta data centre has lifted large-customer interest in Alberta. In comments reported September 22–24, Capital Power’s chief executive said Meta’s Sturgeon County data centre has made the province more attractive to other large U.S. technology companies. Capital Power has a long-term agreement, announced in July, to supply 250 MW to the site from the second half of 2028 until the dedicated Greenlight gas plant, led by Pembina Pipeline, is expected online in 2030. Company commentary, not a new project, but it is the kind of load the 2028–29 forwards are pricing.
• Rate of Last Resort. Unchanged at 12.01 to 12.06¢/kWh and fixed through December 31, 2026. Rates for the January 1, 2027 to December 31, 2028 term must be filed at least 30 days before January 1, 2027 under the providers’ approved energy price setting plans, which puts the filing deadline in early December. The natural gas default, the Default Rate Tariff, is approved monthly by the AUC; the October 2026 disposition for Direct Energy Regulated Services was issued September 23.
• No new AUC decision affecting residential electricity rates was issued this week.

What this means if your contract is up

Two editions ago the variable rate was half a cent above the one-year fixed rate. Today the two are within a twentieth of a cent of each other. With the rates this close, choosing between fixed and variable is mostly a question of how much month-to-month movement you are comfortable with on your bill, not which one is cheaper.

The arithmetic as it stands: variable at 6.53¢/kWh, one-year fixed at 6.57¢/kWh, two-year fixed at 7.97¢/kWh, three-year fixed at 8.87¢/kWh. Keep in mind the variable rate trails the market by up to a month, so it reflects prices already paid rather than the winter ahead. On gas the floating rate at $3.58/GJ remains below the $3.77/GJ fixed rate, with the heating season still ahead.

The one option that is hard to justify on any of these numbers is the default Rate of Last Resort at 12.01 to 12.06¢/kWh. It is set by regulation rather than by the market, 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, August 29 – September 27, 2026. Retrieved September 28, 2026.
• Government of Alberta — Alberta natural gas reference price — monthly $/GJ series through July 2026. Retrieved September 28, 2026.
• TC Energy — Alberta power market update, September 2026 — forward price table indicative as of September 1, 2026, and August 2026 market recap; compared with the August 2026 update (indicative August 4). Retrieved September 28, 2026.
• AESO Engage — Restructured Energy Market (REM) ISO Rules — September 21, 2026 engagement launch, window 1 dates. Retrieved September 28, 2026.
• EnergyNow — Meta data center boosts Alberta appeal for hyperscalers, Capital Power says (September 23, 2026), and Capital Power — 250 MW agreement with Meta (July 2026). Retrieved September 28, 2026.
• Government of Alberta — AI data centres by the numbers — large-load connection list figure as of July 30, 2026. Retrieved September 28, 2026.
• Utilities Consumer Advocate — default rates — Rate of Last Resort 12.01–12.06¢/kWh to December 31, 2026; Default Rate Tariff approved monthly. Retrieved September 28, 2026.

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