Regional Outlook — SA1 — Friday 1 May 2026
The SA1 spot price sits at -$2/MWh at 06:35 AEST, with demand at 1,364 MW — a Saturday morning low typical of reduced commercial activity. Negative pricing has been the dominant condition across the past 24 hours, with only a brief positive excursion during the morning ramp between approximately 17:50 and 19:00 AEST, where prices peaked at $44.49/MWh at 17:00 AEST before retreating sharply. Outside that window, prices have tracked between -$1/MWh and -$9/MWh, with the deepest negative prints of -$8.98/MWh and -$9/MWh occurring in the 12:50–13:00 AEST overnight period when demand fell below 1,000 MW.
Wind is driving the current generation stack, contributing 776 MW, with gas CCGT at 115 MW providing the balance of dispatchable output. Gas OCGT and solar are both at zero MW — consistent with overnight conditions and 100% cloud cover at 23.2°C. Renewable penetration sits at 87.08% and carbon intensity is 0.0633 tCO2/MWh. Today's weather outlook is overcast (average 77% cloud cover, max 21.8°C) with average wind potential of 11.1, which is moderate — solar generation will remain minimal throughout the day, meaning wind and gas CCGT are the primary dispatch levers. The overnight period saw carbon intensity rise to a 24-hour high of 0.0951 tCO2/MWh as gas carried more of the load with wind output lower, before recovering as wind strengthened and demand eased from the evening peak.
Predispatch forecasts for the next several half-hours are uniformly negative, with prices tipped at around -$2/MWh through to 07:30 AEST, then drifting slightly more negative into the -$2.80 to -$3.20/MWh range through the 10:00–12:00 AEST window as demand remains subdued and wind output holds up. Forecasts for the 12:30 AEST (02:00 UTC) period show prices nudging toward -$3.60 to -$3.70/MWh, with isolated forecasts touching -$7.56/MWh in that band, suggesting potential periods of deeper negative pricing if wind oversupplies a low-demand Saturday. The morning ramp from around 17:00 AEST remains the primary window to watch for any return to positive territory, mirroring the pattern seen in the previous 24 hours.
The most relevant active notice for SA is the now-cancelled Forecast LOR1 from 28 April (Market Notice 144006/144007), which has no current operational impact. The active QNI interconnector constraint (I-QN_550, Market Notice 144013) relates to the Armidale–Sapphire 330 kV line outage, which remains in force until 17:00 AEST today — this restricts NSW–QLD transfer capacity and has indirect flow-on implications for NEM-wide dispatch, but does not directly bind SA flows. The MSATS 56.2 system outage scheduled for 10 May (Market Notice 144026) requires participant attention for settlements and meter data access planning ahead of that date.