commodity demand nsw — NSW1

NSW spot is at $61.01/MWh with demand sitting at 8,202 MW as of 16:30 AEST — a significant step down from yesterday's evening peak of 10,894 MW at 03:50 AEST, when prices held at $86/MWh for an extended block spanning roughly 02:30–05:10 AEST. The demand-price relationship over the past 48 hours has been tight: prices tracked above $80/MWh consistently only when demand exceeded 10,000 MW, while the mid-morning solar trough pushed demand below 5,700 MW and drove spot prices negative, bottoming near -$4.84/MWh around 22:35 AEST yesterday.

Demand has been climbing steadily this morning from an overnight floor near 6,390 MW at approximately 13:10 AEST, recovering through the pre-dawn ramp to reach 7,277 MW by 15:05 AEST before accelerating through the morning peak window. The current 8,202 MW level sits roughly 400 MW below the equivalent period yesterday (8,302 MW at 07:10 AEST), and prices today are tracking around $5–8/MWh softer as a result. Black coal is carrying 5,936 MW of the current load, with wind at 212 MW and solar at 142 MW — renewables at just 10.4%, consistent with the early-morning window before rooftop and utility solar ramps properly.

As demand builds toward the afternoon peak — which yesterday reached 10,894 MW before 04:00 AEST and sustained $86/MWh pricing for over two hours — the price trajectory today will depend on how quickly load climbs through the 9,500–10,000 MW threshold. Yesterday's history shows that crossing 10,000 MW reliably triggered prices above $77/MWh, with the 10,187–10,893 MW band anchored at $80–$91/MWh. No market notices are active, and with gas (both CCGT and OCGT) and hydro all offline in the current dispatch interval, any demand surge into the peak will fall entirely to coal and interconnector flows to set the marginal price.

Carbon intensity at 0.7788 tCO2/MWh is elevated relative to the solar window low of 0.6933 tCO2/MWh seen around 23:00 AEST yesterday, and will remain so until rooftop solar begins to meaningfully suppress underlying demand from approximately 21:00–22:00 AEST onward. Traders should watch the 09:30–11:00 AEST window closely: if demand tracks above 10,000 MW as it did yesterday, current soft spot conditions will firm sharply toward the $80–$90/MWh range with limited flexible supply online to buffer the move.