Carbon Forecast: Thursday 16 April 2026

Tasmania sits at 0.00 tCO2/MWh with 100% renewable penetration — hydro at 493.8 MW and wind at 255.1 MW accounting for the entire dispatch stack at 06:30 AEST. South Australia is next at 0.33 tCO2/MWh with 38% renewables; wind is contributing 201.3 MW alongside 228.2 MW of gas CCGT and 97.8 MW of gas OCGT, and SA's intensity has been trending down through the overnight period from a mid-day peak above 0.46 tCO2/MWh. NSW sits at 0.80 tCO2/MWh with just 9% renewable penetration — black coal dominates at 5,339 MW against 343.6 MW of wind and 182.5 MW of hydro, with solar contributing nothing at this pre-dawn hour. QLD is at 0.85 tCO2/MWh, the highest in the NEM, with black coal at 2,461 MW providing essentially the entire dispatch stack; renewables are at 3.5% and have held in that range all day. Victoria is at 0.89 tCO2/MWh — brown coal at 2,007 MW dominates, with wind at 662 MW providing 25% of supply; VIC's intensity worsened sharply through the afternoon peak, rising from around 0.54 tCO2/MWh in early morning to its current level.

For carbon-sensitive loads, the best windows today are already well established in Tasmania (0.00 tCO2/MWh throughout the entire dataset, unchanged all day) and South Australia, where the lowest readings occurred overnight at roughly 0.11–0.17 tCO2/MWh when wind penetration exceeded 75%. SA's intensity rose steeply from 08:00 AEST as solar failed to materialise and gas stepped in, but it has been easing since the 14:30 AEST interval and is now at 0.33 tCO2/MWh — the trajectory is consistent with continued improvement through the early morning as gas OCGT backs off and wind holds up. For NSW and VIC, the data shows both regions reached their daily intensity low around 08:00–09:00 AEST (0.74 tCO2/MWh in NSW, 0.54 tCO2/MWh in VIC) as solar ramped; with solar now at zero in both regions, those windows have closed and neither is likely to see comparable conditions until solar returns from approximately 07:00 AEST. QLD shows no meaningful intraday variation — renewables remain below 4% across the entire 24-hour dataset — so no low-intensity window is indicated there today. Carbon-sensitive schedulable loads in NSW and VIC should target the 08:00–11:00 AEST solar window on Friday morning; SA and TAS offer the strongest conditions at any hour.