Commodity Demand — VIC1: Friday 17 April 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $67.16/MWh at 06:30 AEST with demand at 4,531 MW — a relatively subdued Saturday morning load level compared to the day's peak of 6,569 MW reached around 19:35 AEST. The price-demand relationship across today's data reveals a clear threshold effect: once demand climbed above approximately 5,500 MW from around 08:00 AEST onward, prices locked in a sustained band of $65–$91/MWh, with the tightest cluster between $73–$83/MWh. Below that threshold, through the overnight trough where demand fell as low as 3,518 MW around 04:40 AEST, prices ran deeply negative, reaching -$47.70/MWh at 16:40 AEST (06:10 UTC). The demand-price sensitivity is asymmetric: the upward price response is steep and rapid as demand crosses into the 5,500–6,000 MW range, but the descent from the morning peak has been gradual with prices holding firm in the $65–$70/MWh range even as demand retreated from its 6,569 MW high.

Looking ahead, today's forecast for the 07:00 AEST period (21:00 UTC) sits consistently between $79–$101/MWh across multiple forecast runs, converging toward the low $80s in the most recent dispatches. That target time corresponds to the evening demand ramp — a Saturday evening load rise is typically softer than a weekday, but today's 4,531 MW current reading still has scope to climb 1,000–1,500 MW into the early evening as heating demand rises (current temperature is 9.7°C with a heating demand index of 8.3). The Tarrone–Heywood/APD 500 kV line remains on unplanned outage with constraint set V-HYTR active, tightening inter-regional transfer limits on the V-SA, VIC1-NSW1, and other interconnectors. This network constraint is a material factor for the evening period — reduced import headroom means any step-up in local demand above 5,000 MW relies more heavily on Victorian generation to clear, supporting the $80–$100/MWh forecast range.

Overnight from approximately 22:00 AEST, load windows signal a sharp price collapse toward zero and negative territory, consistent with today's overnight pattern. Demand is forecast to retrace toward the 3,500–4,000 MW range with prices expected to again turn negative through the early morning hours of 18 April as surplus generation conditions re-emerge. The generation mix at present — 2,196 MW brown coal, 411 MW wind, 109 MW gas OCGT, 15 MW hydro, zero solar — carries a carbon intensity of 1.0066 tCO2/MWh with renewables at 15.63%, notably lower than the 51% renewable share seen during last night's low-demand overnight trough. As solar remains at zero in current darkness and wind output at 411 MW is modest, the evening price floor will be determined primarily by thermal dispatch economics against a demand curve that the V-HYTR constraint continues to constrain from interstate relief.