commodity demand qld — QLD1

Queensland spot is at $95.99/MWh with demand sitting at 6,577 MW as of 16:35 AEST — well below yesterday's afternoon peak of 8,085 MW reached around 04:30 AEST. The demand-price relationship over the past 36 hours is stark: when Queensland demand pushed above 7,600 MW during yesterday's late afternoon and evening window (approximately 23:00–05:00 AEST), spot prices sustained a $100–142/MWh range, with the intraday peak of $142.20/MWh coinciding with demand at 7,661 MW. As demand rolled off post-midnight toward the overnight trough of 5,700–5,800 MW, prices compressed into the $75–85/MWh band — a roughly 60–65% price premium at peak versus off-peak demand levels.

This morning's price ramp is tracking yesterday's pattern precisely. Demand bottomed around 5,700 MW in the pre-dawn window (02:00–03:30 AEST) with prices in the mid-$75/MWh range, then accelerated sharply from 15:35 AEST as the business day load built — $114/MWh at 16:00 AEST, $134/MWh at 16:10 AEST, before retreating to the current $95.99/MWh as demand stabilises around 6,577 MW. Black coal is carrying 2,708 MW of the current dispatch stack with solar contributing only 8.5 MW at this hour, hydro at 86 MW — renewables at just 2.98% of supply, consistent with the 0.842 tCO2/MWh grid intensity. The grid stress score of 79.2/100 reflects the tightening supply margin as the morning ramp progresses.

The demand trajectory points firmly upward from here. If today replicates yesterday's profile, Queensland load will push through 7,500 MW by approximately 19:00–20:00 AEST (09:00–10:00 UTC) and peak above 8,000 MW in the early evening — the critical $100+/MWh price window. Yesterday's data shows $100/MWh was breached consistently once demand cleared 7,400 MW, a threshold Queensland will likely cross within the next two to three hours. Carbon intensity will remain effectively unchanged given the negligible solar output and no indication of wind contribution in the current generation mix — carbon-exposed buyers will face sustained 0.84 tCO2/MWh exposure through the peak.

Flexible load operators should treat the next 30–90 minutes as the final viable low-cost window before sustained double-digit pricing takes hold. The forward forecast curve sits in the $105/MWh range for the late-morning period, and on yesterday's evidence that number understates actual outcomes once demand peaks above 7,800 MW. There are no market notices flagging generation outages or constraint events, so price outcomes today will be driven purely by the demand ramp rate against a coal-heavy baseload stack with limited flexible response available.