Commodity Demand — VIC1 — Sunday 3 May 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at -$2.04/MWh with demand at 4,773 MW at 06:35 AEST, and the price-demand relationship across today's trading so far illustrates a textbook Monday morning ramp. Demand troughed around 3,650–3,760 MW during the late afternoon yesterday (17:00–18:00 AEST), where prices held in the -$2.00 to -$2.26/MWh range, before climbing steadily through the evening. The morning peak hit 5,716 MW at 18:05 AEST (08:05 UTC) with prices reaching $19.56/MWh — the session high — before demand pulled back to the mid-5,000s MW range and prices settled back to $8.69/MWh through the 19:00–19:25 AEST window. Demand has since eased into the 4,700s MW as the post-morning-peak shoulder sets in, pulling prices back into negative territory. Wind is generating 1,547 MW and brown coal sits at 1,279 MW, with gas OCGT contributing 136 MW at the current 06:35 AEST read; renewables are at 52.7% of the mix and carbon intensity is 0.5511 tCO2/MWh.

The price sensitivity to demand movements today has been sharp at the upper end of the load curve. The step from sub-5,000 MW demand (near-zero to mildly negative prices) to the 5,300–5,700 MW range (sustained $8.69–$19.56/MWh) reflects the tightening of available dispatch headroom as the morning commercial load builds. The evening demand build, which began around 09:00 AEST (23:00 UTC) and accelerated through 17:00–18:00 AEST (07:00–08:00 UTC), drove the only materially positive price period of the session. That price responsiveness at the 5,300 MW+ level is the key threshold to watch as demand rebuilds through today's business hours.

Forecast data for the 07:00 AEST (21:00 UTC) half-hour shows consistent forecasts of $21–$26/MWh across successive runs from early this morning through to the most recent dispatch intervals, signalling that the market expects demand to climb back into a range that tightens supply again during the evening peak. Earlier forecasts from 13:00–18:30 AEST runs were clustering around $24–$25/MWh before the 19:00 AEST run dropped sharply to $3.38/MWh, then the 20:00 AEST run rebounded to $26.07/MWh — indicating high forecast uncertainty around whether the evening peak demand ramp will be sufficient to clear available supply at positive prices. Today being a Monday, demand recovery from the weekend trough is the primary driver; with ambient temperature at 12.3°C and heating demand moderate, the residential and commercial heating load build into the 17:00–19:00 AEST window is the most likely catalyst for any sustained positive pricing this evening.

The AEMO market notice cancelling the reclassification of the Eildon PS – Mt Beauty 220 kV contingency (issued at 20:04 UTC, cancelling the 14:01 UTC reclassification) removes a constraint that was active across much of today