Commodity Demand — VIC1 — Saturday 2 May 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at -$2.29/MWh with demand at 3,935 MW at 06:35 AEST — well below the day's peak of 5,409 MW reached at 19:00 AEST. That morning peak, driven by the winter-shoulder ramp from around 16:30 AEST onwards as demand surged from roughly 4,300 MW to above 5,400 MW in under two and a half hours, coincided with prices that barely crossed zero, touching a high of $0.01/MWh at 18:40 AEST. The near-zero price response to that demand spike reflects supply-side weight that kept the market suppressed even at peak load — a pattern consistent with overnight wind generation currently running at 1,455 MW alongside 995 MW of brown coal baseload and 136 MW of gas OCGT.

The overnight trough tells the clearest demand-price story: between 13:15 and 15:15 AEST, demand fell to a daily low around 3,614 MW and prices pinned at -$0.10/MWh, with two sharp negative excursions to -$12.10/MWh at 21:40 and 21:45 AEST when demand dipped toward 4,350–4,370 MW mid-morning. Those -$12.10/MWh prints indicate generator surplus conditions where scheduled output cannot be backed down fast enough to match load, compressing price well below the typical floor. Sunday's reduced commercial and industrial load is amplifying this dynamic today, keeping the demand baseline 300–400 MW below comparable weekday periods.

Forward forecasts for the 07:00–09:30 AEST window (21:00–23:30 UTC) are uniformly negative, clustering between -$2.00/MWh and -$3.01/MWh, with the 08:30 AEST half-hour forecast extending to -$3.55/MWh. As demand tracks through the 3,900–4,200 MW range this morning before the expected rise toward the evening peak, prices are forecast to remain sub-zero throughout. The evening demand ramp — which today's data shows peaks around 5,100–5,400 MW between 18:00 and 19:00 AEST — is the key watch for any price recovery toward positive territory, though Sunday load profiles typically soften the evening ramp compared to weekdays.

The dominant demand-side factor for today's price outlook is the absence of any thermal scarcity signal. With carbon intensity at 0.50 tCO2/MWh and renewables at 56.3% of the mix, wind generation is maintaining sufficient competition to keep marginal clearing prices negative across nearly all intervals. The evening demand ramp from approximately 15:30 AEST onward is the only plausible window where supply tightening could push prices toward or above zero, but forecast data to that horizon shows no evidence of a price breakout — negative price conditions are expected to persist through at least 09:30 AEST.