commodity demand tas — TAS1

Tasmania's spot price sits at $96.72/MWh with demand at 1,079.9 MW at 06:35 AEST — the highest level recorded across the entire session tracked in this dataset. This is the evening ramp in full effect: demand has climbed steadily from a daytime trough of around 771 MW (around 02:00 AEST) through the afternoon and into tonight's peak, with price responding in lockstep. The demand-price relationship is clear across today's data: when demand was depressed in the 770–850 MW range during the early-to-mid afternoon, prices held at $88.20/MWh; as demand cleared 950 MW during the evening ramp from roughly 05:20 AEST onward, the floor shifted decisively to $96.22–$96.24/MWh. The isolated price spikes visible at 15:55 AEST ($168.13/MWh, demand 872 MW) and the 03:35–03:55 AEST cluster ($129–$163/MWh at sub-830 MW demand) demonstrate that Basslink flow conditions and dispatch stack depth — not demand alone — can drive short-duration volatility independent of load levels.

The demand trajectory from here is the key price risk for the remainder of Thursday. Demand is still climbing at the current interval, and early-morning forecasts pegged the 07:00 AEST period at $106.72/MWh before AEMO revised that upward sharply to $175–$178/MWh in the 03:30–05:00 AEST forecast runs, before moderating back to $124.50/MWh from the 05:30 AEST run onwards. That sequence of forecast revisions signals genuine uncertainty around how high the evening peak extends and whether Basslink capacity is available to absorb it. As of now, the 07:00 AEST half-hour forecast RRP has settled at approximately $106.72/MWh in the load window data — meaningfully above current actuals, implying the market is pricing in further demand growth.

Tasmania's generation stack is operating at 100% renewables, with hydro at 303 MW and wind at 151 MW confirmed at 06:30 AEST, and gas OCGT idle. With carbon intensity at 0 tCO2/MWh throughout the entire day, the price pressure is purely a supply-adequacy question driven by demand volume and interconnector dynamics, not fuel cost pass-through. Overnight price reviews — AEMO flagged multiple intervals from 00:00 to 03:55 AEST as subject to Manifestly Incorrect Inputs review — add confirmation risk to the early-morning price record, though the two intervals confirmed so far (02:30 and 01:25 AEST) came back unchanged. Traders should watch closely whether demand continues climbing past 1,100 MW in the next two to three intervals, as that is the threshold at which today's forecast data implies upward price pressure beyond the current $96–$107/MWh band.