Alberta Energy Market Report

The Alberta Energy Market Report is published every Monday by Get Energy. It covers what the AESO wholesale pool price did, where natural gas sits, current retail rate levels, and any regulatory news that affects Alberta households and small businesses. The current edition is below; earlier editions are in the archive at the foot of this page.

Current edition: October 5, 2026, covering September 28 – October 4, 2026 — permanent link to this edition.

Week in one line: Alberta’s wholesale power price averaged $39.87/MWh for September 28 – October 4 against $25.60/MWh the week before — up 56% — and almost all of the increase came from one day: on Thursday, October 1, seven hours cleared $100/MWh and the week peaked at $403.41/MWh. Get Energy’s variable electricity rate fell 1.63¢ to 4.90¢/kWh as the late-August spike left its 30-day window, now 1.67¢ below the one-year fixed rate.

Reporting week: September 28 – October 4, 2026. Published October 5, 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 28–Oct 4	Sep 21–27	Change
Average pool price	$39.87/MWh	$25.60/MWh	+56%
Median hour	$28.24/MWh	$20.73/MWh	+36%
Highest hour	$403.41/MWh (Oct 1, HE19)	$95.12/MWh (Sep 24, HE7)	+$308.29
Lowest hour	$0.00/MWh	$0.00/MWh	—
Hours above $100/MWh	7	0	+7
Hours at or near zero	5	7	−2
Average Alberta internal load	10,001 MW	9,866 MW	+135 MW
Peak load	10,622 MW	10,877 MW	−255 MW

The 30-day rolling average for the period ending October 4 is $30.17/MWh, against $30.10/MWh a week earlier — effectively unchanged. The days that rolled out of the window (August 29 – September 4) cost about as much in total as the seven days that rolled in, so the expensive Thursday was offset by early-September hours leaving the average.

What actually happened

One day made the week. Daily averages: $32.04 Monday, $14.51 Tuesday, $42.35 Wednesday, $93.32 Thursday, $29.98 Friday, $41.83 Saturday and $25.08 Sunday. All seven hours above $100/MWh fell on Thursday, October 1: two in the morning ramp (HE8 at $200.90 and HE9 at $155.04) and five in the evening, from HE17 through HE21, peaking at $403.41/MWh in hour ending 19. Take Thursday out and the other six days averaged about $31/MWh — higher than last week, but not by much.

The floor rose again. Only 5 hours settled at or near zero, down from 7 last week and 20 the week before that, and the median climbed 36% to $28.24/MWh. Near-zero hours in Alberta generally track wind output, so a thinning floor usually means less wind; we did not pull generation data to confirm it this week. With fewer free hours to pull the average down, a single tight day showed up clearly in the weekly number.

Average load rose 135 MW to 10,001 MW — the first week above 10,000 MW since early September, consistent with cooler weather — while peak load came in 255 MW lower at 10,622 MW. Thursday’s prices did not coincide with a new demand peak: load in the $100-plus hours ran between about 10,200 and 10,350 MW, below the week’s high. That points to supply conditions rather than demand setting the price that day; we did not pull outage or wind data to identify the cause.

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 sits well under the $2.71/GJ that closed 2025.

October is the first heating-season month. TC Energy’s September 1 table put AECO gas at $1.17/GJ for October and $1.61/GJ for the balance of 2026. Last year the reference price went from $0.95 in October to $2.04 in November and $2.71 in December, so the next two months are the ones that matter most for a household gas bill.

Where retail rates sit

Product	Rate (Oct 5, 2026)	Week over week
Electricity — variable (30-day avg, calculated Sep 28)	4.90¢/kWh	−1.63¢
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 25, includes transaction fee)	$2.65/GJ	−$0.93
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 1.63¢ to 4.90¢/kWh, the largest weekly move since these editions began. It is a trailing 30-day average calculated as of September 28, so it now covers roughly the last days of August through September 27. The August 24–26 price spike has dropped out of it entirely, and September was a cheap month. Thursday’s $403 hour is not in this number yet; it will be in next week’s calculation.

Fixed electricity rates did not move. Variable now sits 1.67¢ below the one-year fixed rate of 6.57¢/kWh, after being level with it last week and above it in mid-September. The gas 30-day discount moving average dropped 93 cents to $2.65/GJ, $1.12 below the $3.77/GJ one-year fixed gas rate; that is also the largest weekly change in the gas figure we have recorded, and we report it as published on the rate sheet. 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 5, 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. Those figures are unchanged from last week’s edition; 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 shape is the story: 2027 is priced near what the pool has actually done this year, and 2028 and 2029 sit well above it, in the years large new load is expected to start connecting. A September 22 Bennett Jones commentary cited AESO figures putting requested data-centre load above 20,600 MW, against a provincial peak demand of about 13,000 MW. Requests are not approvals; the AESO’s interim limit for new large load remains far below that figure.

Regulatory and market news

Alberta stops changing its clocks, and the AESO is updating its rules to match. Under the new Official Time Act, Alberta stays on “Alberta Time” (UTC−6, what used to be Mountain Daylight Time) year-round; clocks will not fall back on November 1, 2026. On September 25 the AESO posted administrative amendments replacing “Mountain Time” references in its ISO rules and reliability standards with “Alberta Time” and removing a daylight-saving adjustment, with feedback due October 9. No effect on rates; for anyone reading hourly pool-price data, there will be no repeated fall-back hour this year.
REM ISO Rules engagement: first stakeholder session is October 6. The AESO’s window 1 session on proposed revisions to the Restructured Energy Market rules is set for October 6, with written feedback due October 16 and AESO responses expected by November 30. This is market-participant rule work and does not change residential rates.
Data-centre siting moved to the municipal level this week. Arizona-based Walton Global Investments applied to amend the Edmonton Energy and Technology Park area structure plan to enable a large data-centre campus in northeast Edmonton; the city is taking online feedback until October 25, ahead of a council public hearing. A motion asking for a report on regulating and restricting large-scale data centres is set for Edmonton council on October 6. Separately, the County of Grande Prairie issued a development permit for an AI data centre near Sexsmith and said it will change how similar projects are reviewed after residents raised concerns. These are land-use steps, not grid connections.
Rate of Last Resort. Unchanged at 12.01 to 12.06¢/kWh and fixed through December 31, 2026. Rates for the 2027–2028 term must be filed at least 30 days before January 1, 2027. The natural gas Default Rate Tariff is approved monthly by the AUC; the October 2026 disposition for Direct Energy Regulated Services (31080-D01-2026) has been issued.
We found no new AUC decision affecting residential electricity rates this week.

What this means if your contract is up

For the first time in these editions the variable rate is well below every fixed option: 4.90¢/kWh variable against 6.57¢/kWh for one year, 7.97¢/kWh for two and 8.87¢/kWh for three. That gap reflects a cheap September. The variable rate trails the market by up to a month, so it tells you what prices were, not what the winter will bring — and this week’s Thursday is a reminder that a single tight day can add several dollars to a weekly average.

The trade-off is the same as always, with different numbers. Variable has been the lower rate this month and moves with the market; fixed costs more today and does not move for its term. On gas the floating rate at $2.65/GJ is $1.12 below the $3.77/GJ fixed rate as the heating season starts, 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 4, 2026. Retrieved October 5, 2026.
Government of Alberta — Alberta natural gas reference price — monthly $/GJ series through July 2026. Retrieved October 5, 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 5, 2026.
Bennett Jones — Data Centre West 2026: Alberta’s Digital Infrastructure Moment Has Arrived (September 22, 2026) — requested data-centre load per AESO. Retrieved October 5, 2026.
Government of Alberta — Alberta’s new time system (ABT) and AESO Engage — Alberta Time Change Administrative Amendments (letter of notice September 25, 2026). Retrieved October 5, 2026.
AESO Engage — Restructured Energy Market (REM) ISO Rules — window 1 dates. Retrieved October 5, 2026.
Taproot Edmonton — Data centre campus proposed in northeast Edmonton (September 30, 2026) and Edmonton Sun — Grande Prairie issues data centre development permit near Sexsmith (September 30, 2026). Retrieved October 5, 2026.
Utilities Consumer Advocate — default rates — Rate of Last Resort 12.01–12.06¢/kWh to December 31, 2026; and AUC Disposition 31080-D01-2026 (DERS DRT, October 2026). Retrieved October 5, 2026.

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