Commodity Demand — TAS1 — Monday 4 May 2026

Tasmania sits at 88.18 $/MWh with demand at 1,081 MW as of 06:35 AEST, having pulled back from the overnight evening peak. The price-demand relationship has been pronounced across today's trading window: demand climbed from a pre-dawn trough near 940 MW (around 03:00–04:00 AEST) through a sustained morning peak that breached 1,240 MW between 08:00 and 09:15 AEST, driving spot prices to a session high of 126.36 $/MWh at 18:05 AEST (08:05 UTC). That morning ramp — roughly 300 MW of load added over four hours — is the sharpest demand gradient of the day and the interval most associated with elevated price outcomes. As demand eased through the midday trough toward the mid-afternoon minimum near 908 MW (around 02:50–03:00 AEST), prices locked into a flat band at 88.24 $/MWh for an extended run of consecutive intervals, indicating the market settled at a stable supply stack price rather than responding to further demand movement.

The evening ramp is now actively in play. Demand has risen from 899 MW at 04:35 AEST to 1,081 MW at 06:35 AEST, and the price response is already visible: two intervals spiked to 149.68 and 154.79 $/MWh at 06:25–06:30 AEST as demand crossed the 1,073–1,086 MW range, before snapping back to 88.18 $/MWh in the most recent interval. That spike-and-retreat pattern suggests the supply stack has a step in the 1,080–1,090 MW zone where marginal capacity becomes notably more expensive before additional volume clears the price back down — consistent with dispatch of flexible hydro responding quickly. The 9.4°C ambient temperature and a heating demand index of 8.6 confirm this is a cold evening load profile, not an anomalous event.

Forecast pricing converges tightly to 88.18 $/MWh for the 07:00 and 07:30 AEST half-hour trading periods, signalling the market expects demand to remain manageable in the near term. However, forecasts step up to the 96–130 $/MWh range from 08:30 AEST onward as demand is expected to rebuild through the early-morning working day ramp — the same window that produced the 120–126 $/MWh prints in today's equivalent morning peak. The previously declared Forecast LOR1 for 17:30–18:00 AEST (07:30–08:00 UTC) — with forecast reserve of 561 MW against a 577 MW requirement — was subsequently cancelled on 2 May, but the notice underlines that Tasmania's reserve margin is thin during peak periods and that the Basslink interconnector (T-V-MNSP1) constraint, triggered multiple times today by lightning-related reclassifications on the Sheffield–George Town 220 kV lines, adds interconnector flow uncertainty during morning demand peaks.

Traders positioning through the 08:00–10:30 AEST window should note that forecast prices in the 110–130 $/MWh range across that period reflect the market's expectation of demand recovering toward and potentially exceeding 1,200 MW, the