Regional Outlook — NSW1 — Tuesday 28 April 2026
The NSW1 spot price sits at $98.61/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with total demand at 7,663 MW. Tracing the 24-hour arc, prices bottomed out in the early hours — reaching $0/MWh across multiple intervals between 13:45 and 14:00 AEST — before climbing steadily through the morning peak, where they touched $124.54/MWh at 06:50 AEST and $120/MWh at 17:40 AEST. The current level represents a modest retracement from those intraday highs, consistent with demand easing off the morning peak. The 24-hour price average across the recorded history sits in the mid-$70s/MWh range, meaning the current dispatch price is running roughly 25–30% above that overnight average as the grid transitions into the working day.
The generation mix is dominated by black coal at 5,947 MW, accounting for approximately 89% of local output. Hydro contributes 433 MW (around 6%), wind 38 MW and solar 15 MW — giving a combined renewable contribution of just 7.54% at this interval, per the latest carbon data. Both gas CCGT and gas OCGT are dispatched at zero MW. Carbon intensity sits at 0.8136 tCO2/MWh as of 06:30 AEST. This is notably elevated relative to the mid-morning low of 0.7421 tCO2/MWh recorded around 19:30 AEST yesterday, when solar generation was near its intraday peak and renewable penetration reached 15.67% — the best reading in the 24-hour window. With solar output now negligible and wind contribution minimal, intensity has drifted back toward the upper end of the day's range.
Predispatch forecasts for the 07:00 and 07:30 AEST trading periods are tightly clustered at $97.65–$97.67/MWh across all recent forecast runs, indicating the market expects price to step down marginally from the current $98.61/MWh and hold in that band through the next hour. There is no forecast volatility signal in the predispatch data — the spread across the 13 forecast runs for the 07:00 target is less than $3/MWh. Load window data points to a sharp overnight price collapse from 08:30 AEST onward, with forecast prices in the $9–$35/MWh range for the 08:30–12:00 AEST window and sub-zero prices ($-4.12/MWh at the trough) expected around the 14:00 AEST solar peak period — consistent with the pattern observed in the preceding 24 hours.
On market notices, the most operationally relevant active notice is a non-conformance declaration for unit VP6 in NSW1 (Market Notice 144009), covering a 14:40–14:45 AEST window on 28 April, with a deviation of -159 MW against constraint NC-N_VP6. This has resolved but remains active in the notice register. AEMO's MT PASA reserve notice (144008) confirms no Low Reserve Conditions are identified in NSW for the outlook period — system adequacy is not a concern today. A completed MSATS eMDM April maintenance release (CHG0108549) is also active in the notice register but carries no market impact.