Regional Outlook — QLD1: Sunday 26 April 2026

The Queensland spot price sits at $79.92/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with total demand at 6,457 MW — consistent with a typical Monday morning ramp. The 24-hour price profile tells a clear story: the market traded deeply negative or near zero throughout the overnight trough (reaching as low as -$4.09/MWh around 11:55 AEST overnight), then staged a sharp morning recovery, touching $91.75/MWh at 06:10 AEST before settling into the current $78–$85/MWh band that has held through the morning peak. The current price is broadly in line with the post-sunrise equilibrium observed across the 06:00–09:30 AEST window, where prices clustered tightly between $73 and $86/MWh.

The generation mix is dominated by black coal at 2,454 MW, with hydro contributing 86 MW and gas OCGT running at a negligible 0.06 MW. Solar is at zero output, consistent with the 06:30 AEST timestamp and 91% cloud cover recorded at the site. Renewable penetration stands at just 3.4% — a sharp contrast to the overnight period where renewables reached 22% of the mix as coal backed down during the demand trough. Carbon intensity is 0.8501 tCO2/MWh, near the top of the range observed over the past 24 hours; the overnight low of 0.6851 tCO2/MWh at 08:30 AEST (Sunday) reflects that earlier high-renewable window. With solar offline and wind potential near zero (wind speed 6.1 km/h), the mix is unlikely to shift materially until solar generation ramps later in the morning.

Predispatch forecasts point to a price step-up over the next hour. The 07:00 AEST interval (21:00 UTC) is forecast at $94.57/MWh in the most recent predispatch run, with earlier runs for the same interval ranging from $79.80 to $96.27/MWh — the spread narrowing and trending higher through afternoon predispatch updates. The 07:30 AEST interval carries a forecast of $82.50/MWh, suggesting the $90+ spike may be brief. Flexible load operators and battery operators should note that the load window analysis identifies the upcoming overnight period (from approximately 08:30–09:30 AEST tonight) as an "excellent" dispatch opportunity, with modelled prices ranging from negative to low single digits.

AEMO has issued a high volume of Manifestly Incorrect Inputs review notices (Clause 3.9.2B NER) covering intervals from approximately 00:00 to 05:30 AEST today. Of those reviewed so far, confirmed outcomes include the 03:15 AEST and 04:15 AEST and 05:10 AEST intervals — all confirmed unchanged. Notices for intervals from 05:15 to 05:30 AEST remain active and under review as of this briefing. Traders with positions in those early-morning intervals should hold off on settlement assumptions until AEMO confirms outcomes; the overnight negative-price intervals that triggered these reviews may yet be adjusted, though the pattern of confirmed-unchanged results to date suggests the prices are likely to stand.