commodity demand tas — TAS1

Tasmania's spot price sits at $119.59/MWh with demand at 1,109.4 MW as of 06:30 AEST, reflecting the morning ramp that has pushed prices decisively above the $106/MWh band that dominated overnight trade. The demand trajectory tells the story clearly: from a trough near 860 MW in the early hours, load has climbed over 250 MW into the morning peak, and the price response has been proportional — each step above 1,000 MW has pulled prices into the $113–$120/MWh range, with the current interval marking the highest print of the morning ramp so far.

The overnight period illustrates the price floor structure well. Between roughly 870–910 MW, the market traded in a tight $96–$106/MWh corridor, with Hydro dispatch setting a stable baseload stack. As demand crossed 950 MW from around 15:00 AEST onward into the evening peak, prices stepped up through $106/MWh and intermittently touched $120.12/MWh, confirming that the marginal unit pricing threshold sits somewhere in the 950–1,000 MW demand range. Above 1,050 MW, the market reliably breaches $110/MWh and becomes susceptible to short-duration spikes.

Today's demand trajectory follows the standard autumn Friday pattern — the morning peak is likely to plateau or soften slightly through mid-morning as commercial load stabilises, before a mid-afternoon trough in the 800–870 MW range that historically resets prices back toward the $96/MWh floor. The evening ramp from approximately 16:30–18:30 AEST is the key price risk period: load climbed from 930 MW to over 1,070 MW across that window on current data, consistently triggering $106–$120/MWh pricing. With 100% renewable generation from 527.86 MW of hydro and zero wind or gas dispatch, supply-side flexibility is entirely hydro-dependent, meaning price spikes during demand surges reflect dispatch scheduling rather than fuel cost pressure. Traders with flexible load should target the mid-afternoon window for cost exposure management.