Quote:
Originally Posted by Regorium
I think I agree with most of your point. However, I don't think the electricity market is as one sided as you present.
The businesses assumed some billion dollars of risk to pay to have that clause - even so, it has been stated that the selling price of the PPA's were below what the government was expecting.
Businesses then invested further, which provided this glut of energy generation which has caused our power prices to be 1.8c/kwh, compared to ~20c/kwh in peak hours over in Ontario.
So, even though the companies themselves won big (10B+ of profits according to the NDP), Albertans also won big by having much lower power prices than other places in Canada. The government does assume a huge amount of risk - the entire point of the Balancing Pool is to assume risk but that is to provide this win-win environment for both for businesses and Albertans.
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Makes sense. As I understand it, the goal of the PPA framework was to foster competition (and presumably lower prices). As I said, don't hold myself out as an electricity market expert by any means.