Temperatures are expected to be near normal averages for October which means there is a low risk of displacing the current top five ICI peak demands.
The IESO recently published an 18-month outlook assessing the reliability of the Ontario electricity system over the short term: October 2018 to March 2020.
Within the report, the IESO is predicting that peak demands will continue to face downward pressure. Conversely, after a significant decline in 2017, overall power demand has been trending up over the first part of 2018. Demand is expected to continue rising for the next 18 months.
Also within the IESO report, the forecasted demand peak throughout winter 2018-19 under normal weather conditions is 21,334 MW. This is not a high enough demand to offset the #5 ICI peak of 21,885 MW. However, under extreme weather conditions, the IESO is predicting a peak of 22,261 MW which is enough to displace one of the current top five ICI peak demands.
Ontario Demand on January 5, 2018, 5-6pm EST was 20,906 MW which became the official #4 ICI demand peak.
ICI base periods run from May 1st to April 30th each year.
ICI peaks are confirmed using Adjusted Allocated Quantity of Energy Withdrawn (AQEW) peaks. These values are published 20 business days after the trade date.
Source: http://www.ieso.ca/sector-participants/planning-and-forecasting/18-month-outlook
