Regional Outlook — QLD1

The Queensland spot price sits at $92.57/MWh as of 06:30 AEST, representing the highest point of the morning ramp and a sharp climb from the sub-$1/MWh troughs recorded overnight between roughly 08:00–09:00 AEST. That overnight floor reflects classic off-peak suppression before demand rebuilt through the pre-dawn hours. The 24-hour price trajectory shows a textbook weekday pattern: a steep evening peak above $84/MWh, collapse to near-zero overnight, gradual recovery from around $20–40/MWh in the early hours, then an accelerating morning ramp that has pushed prices into the low-to-mid $90s as commercial and industrial load comes online. Total demand currently sits at 6,655 MW, up from the overnight trough of around 5,015 MW.

The generation mix is heavily weighted to black coal, which is contributing approximately 2,498 MW — the dominant fuel source at this hour with solar at zero output given it is pre-dawn, gas OCGT contributing a negligible 0.06 MW, and hydro providing 86 MW. Renewables are contributing just 3.33% of the current mix, consistent with the overnight and early-morning pattern where solar is absent and wind penetration across the Queensland fleet is minimal. Carbon intensity stands at 0.8507 tCO2/MWh, near its daily peak — a direct function of coal carrying the bulk of the load without solar offset. The intensity history shows that overnight, when demand was lower and the coal fleet was running at reduced output, intensity dipped to a low of around 0.675–0.694 tCO2/MWh between approximately 09:30–10:30 AEST, driven partly by higher renewable penetration of 21–23%.

Predispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST interval are clustered around $82.50–$84.73/MWh, suggesting prices are expected to ease slightly from the current $92.57/MWh peak as the morning ramp stabilises. The most recent predispatch run (issued 06:01 AEST) has the 07:00 interval at $84.73/MWh and the 07:30 interval at $82.50/MWh, pointing to a mild softening rather than any sharp correction. The load window analysis confirms that the optimal deferral window for flexible consumers is the 08:30–10:00 AEST period (UTC 22:30–00:00), where forecast prices collapse to near zero and into negative territory, with some windows showing $/MWh as low as -$8.67 — consistent with the pattern observed overnight.

Two active market notices warrant attention. First, a non-conformance notice (MN 143947) was issued for unit MPP_1 in the QLD1 region, which ran approximately -35 MW off its dispatch target between 05:10 and 07:10 AEST — this may have contributed to the tightening seen in the 06:30–07:00 AEST price intervals. Second, while the SA LOR1 reserve notice (MN 144006, covering 18:00–20:30 AEST tonight) has been cancelled per MN 144007, traders should note the original forecast had SA reserve margins below requirement during the evening peak — any renewed NEM-wide tightness could flow through to QLD-SA interconnector flows and indirectly influence Queensland