IESO Virtual Zone Prices

Prices in IESO's virtual transaction zones, where virtual bids and offers settle.

Prices data IESO market

Query with the agent

Native record

market run x virtual zone x interval

five-minute real-time; hourly day-ahead publication cadence

Evidence

Mixed evidence

Multiple evidence types kept distinct in the contract

Time basis

Point-in-time records

UTC · event_time

Overview

Prices in IESO's virtual transaction zones, where virtual bids and offers settle.

Query contract

Preserve one canonical row per (event_time, market_run, zone_name) before aggregating.

Analysis rules

Filter one market_run: 'rt_5min' (real-time, five-minute), 'da_hourly' (day-ahead market) or 'predispatch_hourly' (pre-dispatch projection). Never mix runs, and never take max(event_time) without one: day-ahead rows reach into tomorrow.
Rows repeat across polls: dedupe with argMax(value, ingested_at) per key.

Interpretation

event_time marks the END of the interval or hour. IESO delivers on EST all year, but this mirror's event_time was built on Toronto wall time, so between the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November it is one hour early. The delivery end is event_time + toIntervalSecond(timeZoneOffset(toTimeZone(event_time, 'America/Toronto')) + 18000); rows in the spring-forward hour cannot be placed. Toronto civil time is for display only.
Prices are Canadian dollars per MWh. Never add, rank or average them with US-dollar prices without a dated exchange rate, and say which rate was used.

Access

Need the full history of this dataset in Snowflake, Databricks or your own storage? Data services delivers it on a schedule.

Schema8

Column

Type

event_timeDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

market_runLowCardinality(String)

zone_nameLowCardinality(String)

lmpNullable(Float64)

congestionNullable(Float64)

lossNullable(Float64)

publish_timeNullable(DateTime64(6, 'UTC'))

ingested_atDateTime64(6, 'UTC')

Sample data

event_time	market_run	zone_name	lmp	congestion	loss	publish_time	ingested_at
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	WEST:HUB	30.58	-0.67	-0.83	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	TORONTO:HUB	32.1	0	0.02	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	SOUTHWEST:HUB	31.08	-0.67	-0.33	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	OTTAWA:HUB	33.58	0	1.5	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	NORTHWEST:HUB	27.74	-4.01	-0.34	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	NORTHEAST:HUB	33.5	0	1.42	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	NIAGARA:HUB	30.17	-0.34	-1.57	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	ESSA:HUB	32.79	0	0.71	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	EAST:HUB	32.93	0	0.84	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	WEST:HUB	33.54	-7.63	-0.79	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	TORONTO:HUB	42	0	0.04	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	SOUTHWEST:HUB	33.93	-7.62	-0.41	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	OTTAWA:HUB	43.89	0	1.93	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	NORTHWEST:HUB	40.81	0	-1.15	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	NORTHEAST:HUB	43.53	0	1.57	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	NIAGARA:HUB	36.85	-3.81	-1.29	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	ESSA:HUB	42.69	0	0.73	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	da_hourly	EAST:HUB	43.09	0	1.13	∅	2026-10-10 17:35:19.543734
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	WEST:HUB	30.58	-0.67	-0.83	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	TORONTO:HUB	32.1	0	0.02	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	SOUTHWEST:HUB	31.08	-0.67	-0.33	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	OTTAWA:HUB	33.58	0	1.5	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	NORTHWEST:HUB	27.74	-4.01	-0.34	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	NORTHEAST:HUB	33.5	0	1.42	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031
2026-10-11 04:00:00.000000	predispatch_hourly	NIAGARA:HUB	30.17	-0.34	-1.57	∅	2026-10-10 17:30:26.910031

Coverage

No time-indexed data — coverage isn’t applicable to this dataset.

Related prices data

Related prices data
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