commodity demand qld — QLD1

Queensland spot price sits at $79.58/MWh with total demand at 6,457 MW as of 06:35 AEST. Today's demand profile has followed a textbook Friday morning ramp — from an overnight trough near 4,917 MW around 11:10 AEST, demand climbed sharply through the pre-dawn period, pushing prices from sub-$1/MWh lows to the $100–$120/MWh range during the morning peak between approximately 17:00–19:00 AEST (07:00–09:00 UTC). The intraday price-demand relationship is tight: every 1,000 MW of incremental demand from the overnight trough to the morning peak corresponded to a roughly $90–$100/MWh lift in the spot price, with the highest observed print of $177.81/MWh coinciding with demand touching 8,492 MW around 17:25 AEST.

Demand is now unwinding from that morning peak as expected for a Friday, having pulled back from the 8,500 MW range to 6,457 MW — a 2,000+ MW decline over roughly five hours — with prices softening accordingly. The current $79.58/MWh level is consistent with this mid-afternoon shoulder position. Black coal is carrying 2,660 MW of the current load, with hydro contributing 86 MW and solar a negligible 2.7 MW, reflecting the post-solar-window timing. Grid carbon intensity stands at 0.8516 tCO2/MWh with renewables at just 3.22% of the mix at this hour.

Forward forecasts point to a gentle evening ramp ahead. Forecast RRPs for the 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC) cluster around $71–$83/MWh, stepping down to $63–$71/MWh at 07:30 AEST and further to $37–$53/MWh by 08:00 AEST as demand continues to taper into the late evening. The 17:30–18:00 AEST window (07:30–08:00 UTC) carries the widest forecast spread — ranging from $111 to $235/MWh in some runs — signalling meaningful uncertainty around whether a second demand surge materialises this evening, likely tied to residential load pickup as temperatures cool. Traders should note that Friday evening demand in QLD can undershoot weekday equivalents by 300–600 MW, which would keep prices in the $70–$90/MWh range rather than testing those upper forecast bands.

One demand-side factor worth flagging: the Larcom Creek–Calliope River 275 kV line (QLD) remains on outage following an unplanned trip on 5 April, with constraint set Q-LCCP_8859 active on the NSW–QLD interconnector. This limits northward transfer capacity and means any evening demand spike in QLD has reduced ability to draw on NSW surplus, tightening the effective supply stack and adding upside price risk to the 17:30–18:30 AEST window if demand tracks above the central forecast.