Regional Outlook — QLD1: Thursday 9 April 2026
The Queensland spot price sits at $79.58/MWh against a total demand of 6,457 MW as of 06:35 AEST. That figure represents a significant easing from the morning peak, which drove prices to $177.81/MWh at 17:25 AEST and sustained readings above $100/MWh from approximately 16:00 to 19:30 AEST during the shoulder-to-peak ramp. The overnight trough saw prices collapse to near-zero and briefly negative, touching -$1.15/MWh at 10:45 AEST, consistent with surplus conditions during the pre-dawn low-demand period. The current level is broadly in line with the recent evening settling range of $76–$86/MWh seen across the past two hours.
The generation mix at the current interval is dominated by black coal at 2,660 MW, with hydro contributing 85.93 MW, solar at 2.7 MW, and gas OCGT at a negligible 0.06 MW. Renewable penetration sits at just 3.22%, reflecting the post-sunset period where large-scale solar has exited the dispatch stack. Carbon intensity is 0.8516 tCO2/MWh, near the top of today's range — the overnight period recorded intensity as low as 0.6252 tCO2/MWh when wind and hydro carried a larger share of overnight load and demand was substantially lower (sub-5,000 MW). Today's daytime carbon intensity has held stubbornly above 0.84 tCO2/MWh since approximately 17:00 AEST, as solar generation wound down and baseload thermal has held firm dispatch.
Predispatch forecasts point to a gradual softening through the early hours of Friday morning. The 07:00 AEST half-hour is forecast at $71.83/MWh, easing further to the $70.75–$71.83/MWh band across the 07:30–08:30 AEST window, before prices lift materially into the morning peak. Forecasts for the 17:30–18:00 AEST (07:30–08:00 UTC) half-hours carry indicative prices in the $111–$235/MWh range, with multiple predispatch runs projecting above $200/MWh for the 17:30 and 18:30 AEST intervals — signalling a sharp morning ramp consistent with what Queensland experienced across the same window today. The spread in those outer-interval forecasts is wide, indicating model uncertainty around peak demand and available capacity.
No market notices directly affecting Queensland's network are currently active. The batch of RECLASSIFY CONTINGENCY notices in the data set relates exclusively to transmission infrastructure in VIC1 and TAS1, triggered by lightning activity across those regions overnight. A pre-existing INTER-REGIONAL TRANSFER notice (MN 140921) remains active regarding the Larcom Creek–Calliope River 8859 275kV line outage, which invoked the Q-LCCP_8859 constraint set affecting the N-Q-MNSP1 and NSW1–QLD1 interconnectors from 5 April — traders with cross-border positions should confirm current interconnector headroom given that constraint remains flagged. A Telstra Brisbane Indial outage affecting AEMO voice communications is scheduled for 16 April and carries no dispatch impact.