Regional Outlook — VIC1: Friday 17 April 2026

The Victoria spot price sits at $67.16/MWh as of 06:30 AEST, with total demand at 4,531 MW — a relatively modest Saturday load. That current price represents a significant step down from the sustained $73–$91/MWh band that dominated the 17:00–23:00 AEST window, when demand peaked above 6,400 MW during morning business hours. Prices touched negative territory repeatedly overnight — bottoming at -$47.70/MWh around 15:40 AEST — reflecting surplus generation against low weekend demand, a pattern typical of autumn Saturdays. The 24-hour price profile shows a sharp negative trough through the 11:00–16:30 AEST (overnight UTC) window followed by a steep morning ramp, with the current $67/MWh sitting in the softer tail of that ramp as demand eases into the weekend.

The generation mix at 06:30 AEST is dominated by brown coal at 2,196 MW, with wind contributing 412 MW, gas OCGT at 109 MW, hydro at 15 MW, and solar at zero — as expected after sunset. Renewables are contributing 15.63% of generation, a low figure compared to the 50%+ penetration recorded during the overnight wind-heavy window between 10:00–11:30 AEST (00:00–01:30 UTC). Carbon intensity sits at 1.0066 tCO2/MWh, elevated against the 0.57 tCO2/MWh low recorded during that overnight renewable peak, and tracking near its daily high as coal carries the bulk of the overnight-into-morning load with solar absent. The intensity has been broadly range-bound between 0.99 and 1.05 tCO2/MWh since around 23:00 AEST as the renewable share compressed.

Predispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC target) are consistently in the $79–$101/MWh range across multiple forecast runs, with the most recent runs (from 05:30–06:00 AEST) settling around $81–$87/MWh. This signals the market expects a price step-up as morning demand builds on a cool autumn day — current heating demand is 8.3 units with temperature at 9.7°C and cloud cover at 71%. Flexible load operators and battery managers should note the load window data points to excellent price conditions from 08:30 AEST onward through to approximately 13:30 AEST (22:30–01:30 UTC), with forecast prices ranging from near-zero to modestly negative in that window — suggesting overnight solar and wind production is expected to push prices back down once daylight and wind conditions establish.

The key active market notice affecting Victorian interconnector flows is the unplanned outage of the Tarrone to Heywood/APD 500 kV line (Market Notice 141113), which invoked constraint set V-HYTR from 22:00 AEST on 17 April, limiting transfer capability on V-SA, VIC1-NSW1, and related interconnectors. This constraint remains active and will cap export and import flexibility across VIC borders until the line is returned to service — traders with positions exposed to VIC-SA or VIC-NSW spreads should factor this into intraday strategy. The upcoming MSATS maintenance window on 26 April (