commodity demand vic — VIC1

Victoria's spot price sits at $60.06/MWh with demand at 4,602 MW as of 06:30 AEST — a comfortable position relative to today's daytime peak, which reached 5,460 MW at around 18:35 AEST and sustained prices in the $63–$81/MWh band through the morning and early afternoon. The price-demand relationship across today's history is clear: every sustained push above 5,000 MW pulled prices into the $65–$80/MWh range, with the intraday high of $82.19/MWh coinciding with a demand spike to 4,582 MW at 00:40 AEST — a brief but sharp response to tighter supply conditions at that hour. Overnight, demand collapsed to a trough near 3,310 MW between 13:00–13:30 AEST, driving prices deep negative (as low as -$12.40/MWh) as brown coal baseload — currently running at 2,192 MW — continued dispatching regardless of demand, forcing generation surplus onto the grid.

The demand trajectory from here is the key pricing signal. Current demand of 4,602 MW is rising, consistent with the evening residential ramp. Forecast prices for the 07:00 AEST window are pegged at $65.01/MWh across multiple AEMO pre-dispatch runs, with one revision to $74.99/MWh visible in the 13:30 AEST forecast run — suggesting some sensitivity to how quickly demand builds through the morning. On a Sunday, the morning peak is typically shallower and shorter than a weekday, which limits upside price risk; the 5,100–5,400 MW range seen during this morning's business hours is unlikely to be repeated this evening. The load window data points to conditions turning very cheap — negative prices forecast from around 08:00 AEST — as overnight solar and wind output erodes net demand against inflexible baseload.

Traders should note that AEMO has flagged prices across a wide range of early-morning intervals (roughly 03:30–06:30 AEST) as subject to review under Clause 3.9.2B for Manifestly Incorrect Inputs, with one interval (04:10 AEST) already confirmed unchanged. These reviews span the deep-negative price period and could result in price revisions that affect settlement for those intervals. With renewable penetration currently at only 6.9% — wind contributing 170 MW, solar zero — and carbon intensity at 1.1108 tCO2/MWh, the grid is running heavily on brown coal at this hour. That balance is expected to shift materially as solar generation emerges through the morning, putting additional downward pressure on prices and reinforcing the case for demand-side load shifting into the 08:00–12:00 AEST window.