{"id":483445,"date":"2026-06-09T06:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T06:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/483445\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T06:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T06:27:08","slug":"canadian-power-prices-fell-for-most-provinces-in-recent-years-c-d-howe-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/483445\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian power prices fell for most provinces in recent years, C.D. Howe study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Power transmission lines near Pincher Creek, Alta. Electricity prices have decreased in most Canadian provinces in recent years, a new study found.Jeff McIntosh\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Despite persisting concerns about rising demand for power from electric vehicles, data centres and a growing population, electricity prices have actually decreased in most Canadian provinces in recent years, according to a new study published by the C.D. Howe Institute. <\/p>\n

Prices fell in six of the nine provinces included in the study, after accounting for inflation, electricity system costs (which includes generating power, transmitting and distributing it to consumers), according to the report released on Thursday. (Prince Edward Island, which imports most of its power from New Brunswick, was excluded.) The policy think tank\u2019s report examined power prices between 2018 and 2023, or 2024 where more recent data was available. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s a contrast with an oft-encountered narrative that power prices are surging across North America. But it\u2019s consistent with a finding from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published in October, which found that national \u201call-in\u201d retail prices for electricity in the U.S. have largely tracked inflation in recent years. As in Canada, however, a small number of states (such as California and Hawaii) have experienced surging rates.<\/p>\n

Alberta saw a significant price surge during the study period, reaching $225 per megawatt hour in 2023. That was driven by the policy decision to shut down its coal-fired plants and rely more heavily on gas-fired generation. <\/p>\n

Wild price swings are a feature of Alberta\u2019s deregulated, market-driven system. Charles De Land, vice president of research at the Canada West Foundation, a think tank which focuses on issues in the country\u2019s four western provinces, and a co-author of the report, noted that Alberta\u2019s power prices have fallen dramatically since 2023, as new renewable and gas generation started up in response to the earlier high prices. <\/p>\n

One reason for the price declines observed in most other provinces was that power demand grew only modestly over the study\u2019s roughly five-year period. It actually fell slightly in Alberta and Nova Scotia, and the greatest increase, in B.C., was less than 1 per cent. Although the Canadian economy grew over the period, much of that was attributed to sectors that are less energy-intensive, such as the service and digital sectors.<\/p>\n

Energy efficiency improvements, including low-consumption appliances and insulation upgrades in buildings, also played a role.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always optimizing,\u201d Mr. De Land said. \u201cLEDs are the obvious example, but every business is always looking to be more efficient, and every consumer. That\u2019s the market in action.\u201d<\/p>\n

The falling prices also reflected heavy subsidies in some provinces, which lower power bills at taxpayers\u2019 expense. Ontario fell from the highest system cost of $192.57 per megawatt hour in 2018 to the fourth highest of $145.16 per megawatt hour in 2023. <\/p>\n

Nationally, power bills follow a familiar pattern: provinces that rely heavily on aging hydroelectric dams (especially Quebec, B.C. and Manitoba) generally enjoy the lowest costs. <\/p>\n

Mainly, this is because large hydro dams, although often painfully costly, have very long lives, and therefore can be paid for over decades. And in contrast with fossil fuel plants, they also avoid variable fuel costs. But they\u2019re only an option for those provinces with the right geography.<\/p>\n

Newfoundland and Labrador is the outlier. Although it generates nearly all of its power using hydro, its costs are higher than in most other provinces. This is largely due to its small population (520,000) coupled with bad project delivery: the notorious Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project, completed in November, 2021, ultimately cost $13-billion, which was more than $6-billion higher its original budget. <\/p>\n

Ontario is an outlier in an entirely different sense. Although system costs are among the highest of the provinces, its residential consumers actually paid less than in all but the major hydroelectric provinces. A main reason for this is the province\u2019s generous rebates, which are funded by taxpayers. They\u2019re so generous, in fact, that Ontario is the only province in which residential customers pay less than major industrial and commercial customers. <\/p>\n

But the authors warned that subsidies \u201crisk creating a double burden by straining provincial budgets and masking the true cost of expanding supply.\u201d Should governments eventually bow to the resulting fiscal pressures, consumers could see their bills skyrocket. <\/p>\n

Electricity system costs matter, Mr. De Land argued, because energy-intensive industries such as steel and aluminum mills or oil refineries tend to set up their operations in regions with lower electricity costs, all other things being equal.<\/p>\n

The report warned that Canadians should not become accustomed to falling rates. That\u2019s because demand is expected to surge in many parts of the country, as pressures continue to mount from population growth, industrial development and emerging energy-intensive sectors such as artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Power transmission lines near Pincher Creek, Alta. Electricity prices have decreased in most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,229,247,220,218,248,245,217,236,237,232,219,216,184,243,242,235,227,259,221,222,234,85,46,230,231,224,249,225,254,255,257,252,256,250,253,223,240,241,238,239,251,141,228,125,244,233,226,126,258],"class_list":["post-483445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-science","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}