Regional Outlook — QLD1: Friday 10 April 2026

The Queensland spot price sits at $78.93/MWh against a backdrop of 5,886 MW total demand at 6:30 AEST this Saturday morning. Looking across the past 24 hours, prices traced a clear diurnal arc: overnight lows dipped into negative territory between roughly 13:30–15:15 AEST (reaching -$5.00/MWh), before surging hard through the morning peak to a session high of $117.73/MWh at 17:05 AEST, then easing through the afternoon and evening to settle in the high $70s where they sit now. The 24-hour average is broadly in the $70–80/MWh band once the morning peak is stripped out, making the current print broadly in line with mid-range conditions for the day.

The generation mix at this interval is dominated by black coal at 2,160.67 MW, with hydro contributing 86.5 MW, solar at just 2 MW (consistent with pre-dawn conditions), and gas OCGT at a negligible 0.06 MW. Renewable penetration sits at 3.93% — the floor for this trading day. Carbon intensity is 0.8454 tCO2/MWh, which is at the high end of today's range; intensity tracked considerably lower overnight (reaching a daily low of 0.6528 tCO2/MWh around 13:00–13:30 AEST) when the renewable share was above 25%, before climbing steeply from around 17:30 AEST as solar output faded and coal dispatch increased to meet the morning demand ramp. The current intensity reflects the overnight/early-morning coal-dominated dispatch profile, and traders running carbon accounting should note that today's daytime window (roughly 19:00–01:00 AEST) delivered significantly lower intensity figures than the current reading.

Predispatch forecasts point to a sharp price decline from here. The 07:00 AEST half-hour interval is forecast at $64.73/MWh, with the 07:30 AEST window tipped at approximately $21.54/MWh — a steep step-down consistent with solar generation beginning to ramp into the grid. From 08:00 AEST onward, load window forecasts show prices turning negative, with multiple intervals from 08:00–10:30 AEST forecast between -$2.50 and -$39.10/MWh. The deepest negative forecasts concentrate around 09:00–08:30 AEST (10:30 AEST local solar peak), where predispatch signals prices as low as -$38.48/MWh. This is a Saturday with lower commercial load, amplifying the likelihood of surplus conditions mid-morning. Demand-side participants and battery operators with charging flexibility should prioritise the 08:00–10:30 AEST window for maximum price advantage.

All active market notices in the dataset relate to contingency reclassifications in TAS1 and VIC1 due to lightning activity — none carry a direct Queensland constraint or interconnector impact. The most operationally relevant recent notice for NEM-wide context is the negative settlement residues event on the NSW–VIC interconnector (NRM_NSW1_VIC1), which was active from 19:00 and cancelled at 19:45 AEST Friday — now resolved, with no ongoing constraint on QLD flows. No Queensland-specific network notices or non-conform