Q3 2022 Reliability Outlook Now Available
September 22, 2022
Ontario’s power system continues to be well positioned for reliability, with sufficient electricity expected to be available to meet the needs of residents, businesses and communities for the next 18 months. However, tight electricity supply conditions are emerging and will require active outage management and increased import volumes at specific times.
Ontario has entered a period during which generation and transmission outages will be increasingly difficult to accommodate. The IESO expects these conditions to persist for the foreseeable future. As a result, market participants are strongly encouraged to plan ahead, submit outage requests early and coordinate with us to ensure planned outages can be appropriately scheduled.
Electricity demand growth in the province is expected to slow to 0.3% in 2023 after strong growth in each of the previous two years (1.4% in 2021 and a projected 2.1% in 2022). As is the case in other parts of the world, Ontario’s economic activity has declined in response to a number of external forces, including the pandemic, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, rising inflation, and other factors. Although economic growth is slowing in the near term, Ontario’s long-term demand forecast shows strong growth due to electrification and new development in the mining, agricultural and industrial sectors
Ontario’s transmission system is expected to reliably supply province-wide demand for the next 18 months. However, there are a significant number of major generation and transmission projects currently underway or starting soon.
The full report is available on the IESO website.