Regional Outlook — TAS1 — Thursday 30 April 2026

The spot price in Tasmania sits at $86.14/MWh as of the 06:30 AEST settlement interval, with total demand at 1,031 MW. Reviewing the past 24 hours, prices traced a pronounced morning peak, reaching $148.47/MWh at 17:30 AEST before easing through the afternoon and evening. The 24-hour price range has been wide — from lows near $71.83/MWh in the early hours through to that $148.47/MWh morning spike — with a rough average across the period sitting in the mid-to-high $80s/MWh. Current demand is well below the overnight peak of around 1,230 MW recorded during the morning shoulder.

Tasmania's generation mix is 100% renewable at this interval, with hydro contributing 75.32 MW and wind 46.55 MW from reported plant; gas OCGT output sits at 0 MW. Carbon intensity is 0 tCO2/MWh and renewable penetration is 100%, a position that has held consistently across every carbon history interval in the dataset — over 24 consecutive hours without fossil dispatch. Weather conditions are overcast (100% cloud cover) with a temperature of 14.2°C and low wind potential (9.9 km/h), which limits solar upside today; the daily outlook suggests partial clearing with a maximum of 25°C and average solar potential of 9.9 for the day, though wind remains light.

Predispatch forecasts point to a material price step-down from current levels. The 07:00 AEST interval (21:00 UTC) is forecast at approximately $74.95/MWh, with subsequent half-hourly intervals through to the early morning hours of 1 May broadly ranging $70–$81/MWh. The most competitive windows appear in the 13:00–14:30 AEST band (00:00–01:30 UTC on 1 May), where several forecast runs dip to $70.08–$70.14/MWh. This trajectory suggests the current $86/MWh level is a transitional plateau ahead of a softer overnight price regime, consistent with declining demand as the evening progresses on this Labour Day Friday.

The only active market notice with direct operational relevance to today is the QNI interconnector restriction (Notice 144013), which limits NSW1–QLD1 transfer capacity due to the Armidale–Sapphire 330 kV line outage, scheduled to remain in place until 17:00 AEST on 2 May. While this does not directly constrain Basslink or Tasmanian dispatch, reduced NEM-wide transfer flexibility can influence mainland price signals that flow back through interconnector economics. The active non-conformance for unit BW03 in NSW1 (Notice 144021, 05:10–05:15 AEST today, −80 MW) is a NSW event with no direct impact on TAS1 operations. No reserve notices or constraints are currently active in Tasmania.