Regional Outlook — TAS1: Saturday 4 April 2026
The Tasmania spot price sits at $96.79/MWh against a demand of 965.78 MW at 06:30 AEST. That price is markedly elevated relative to the overnight trough, where intervals dipped as low as $20.02/MWh in the early hours, and sits well above the mid-session lows of around $70/MWh seen through the late evening. The day's pattern has been characterised by a sharp morning ramp — prices breached $100/MWh repeatedly between 17:15 and 18:30 AEST, touching a session high of $117.73/MWh at 17:30 — before settling into a tight band around $96–$97/MWh through the afternoon and evening. The 24-hour price average across the period sits in the low-to-mid $80s/MWh range, placing the current price comfortably above that mean.
The generation mix is entirely renewable at this interval: hydro is contributing 353.22 MW, wind is contributing 116.64 MW, and gas OCGT output sits at 0 MW. Combined scheduled output totals approximately 470 MW against demand of 965.78 MW, with the balance implied through Basslink imports from Victoria. Carbon intensity sits at 0 tCO2/MWh with renewable penetration at 100% — a position that has held consistently across every recorded interval throughout the past 24 hours.
Predispatch forecasts for the next two half-hour intervals (07:00 and 07:30 AEST) are stable at $96.16/MWh, with one run flagging $97.43/MWh for 07:30. Earlier in the morning, predispatch was projecting the 07:00 AEST interval as high as $125.87/MWh, with that estimate stepping down progressively to $96.16/MWh as real-time conditions clarified — indicating prices settled more benignly than the market initially anticipated. Load window analysis points to cheaper intervals emerging from approximately 11:00 AEST onward, with some forecast windows showing prices in the $36–$65/MWh range through the overnight hours (12:30–13:30 AEST UTC+10), rated "excellent" by gridIQ's load optimisation engine.
The most operationally relevant active notice for Tasmania is the inter-regional transfer limit variation issued at 02:44 AEST today (notice 140921), concerning an unplanned outage of the Larcom Creek–Calliope River 275 kV line in Queensland, which invoked constraint set Q-LCCP_8859 affecting the N-Q-MNSP1 and NSW1-QLD1 interconnectors. While the direct impact sits in the QLD–NSW corridor, any constraint propagation affecting mainland transfer capability has flow-on implications for Basslink flows and Tasmanian import reliance. There are also a large volume of active "Prices Subject to Review" notices covering intervals from approximately 08:10 through 13:20 AEST on 4 April under clause 3.9.2B (Manifestly Incorrect Inputs); where reviewed, prices have been confirmed unchanged. Traders with exposure to those intervals should note the review process is substantially resolved, with the 13:05 AEST interval confirmed unchanged at the latest update.