Regional Outlook — SA1: Saturday 25 April 2026
The spot price in South Australia sits at $182.67/MWh as of 06:35 AEST, a sharp move higher from the subdued conditions that characterised most of the past 24 hours. Overnight intervals were dominated by sustained negative pricing — bottoming at -$61.27/MWh around 14:50 AEST Saturday — driven by strong wind output against low Sunday overnight demand that fell as low as 470 MW. The morning ramp has now pushed demand back to 1,210 MW, and the market has responded with prices climbing through the $100–$130/MWh range across the past hour before reaching the current $182.67/MWh print. The intraday price arc — from deep negatives to well above $100/MWh in roughly six hours — reflects the characteristically volatile profile this region produces as the generation mix shifts across the diurnal cycle.
The current generation mix is lean: wind is contributing 136.63 MW and gas CCGT 114.9 MW, with solar at zero given the pre-dawn interval and gas OCGT not dispatched. That totals approximately 251 MW of visible local generation against 1,210 MW of demand, indicating significant reliance on interconnector flows from Victoria. Renewable penetration sits at 54.32% at the latest 06:30 AEST interval, down materially from the overnight peak of 91.94% recorded around 07:00 AEST Saturday when demand was low and wind was running hard. Carbon intensity is currently 0.2238 tCO2/MWh, up from lows of 0.0395 tCO2/MWh overnight — a direct consequence of gas carrying a larger share of the load as demand rises and wind output remains moderate.
Predispatch forecasts point to a significant easing through the morning. The 07:00 AEST half-hour period is forecast at around $10–$12/MWh across the most recent predispatch runs, and the 07:30 AEST period is similarly soft at $6–$18/MWh depending on the run, with some outlier estimates near $31/MWh. The wide forecast spread reflects uncertainty in wind output and interconnector scheduling, but the central tendency is a return to low double-digit or near-zero pricing once the morning peak is absorbed and, critically, as solar generation begins to build from around 07:30 AEST onward. The 08:00 AEST window and beyond carry forecast prices trending negative again as solar output ramps, consistent with the pattern observed across the past several days.
On market notices, there are no active notices directly affecting SA1 interconnectors or generation units. The most operationally relevant active notice (143505) confirms that the Newcastle–Eraring 330 kV line in NSW returned to service at 13:50 AEST on 25 April, resolving a constraint set active since 7 April — this improves NEM-wide transfer capacity, which has indirect benefits for SA interconnector margins. A non-conformance notice for VIC1 unit LANCSF1 (30 MW, 143503) is active but localised to Victoria and does not directly constrain SA. The volume of "Prices Subject to Review" notices relates to SA-adjacent intervals from 24 April and are now confirmed unchanged per notice 143497, so no retrospective price revision risk applies to those periods.