Commodity Demand — QLD1 — Tuesday 5 May 2026

Queensland spot price is 130.9 $/MWh at 6,562 MW demand as of 06:30 AEST, sitting at the top of an evening ramp that has been building since the overnight trough of around 4,812 MW at roughly 10:45 AEST. The price-demand relationship across today's data is pronounced: when demand troughed near 4,800–4,900 MW in the early morning hours, spot prices held in the 47–55 $/MWh range. As demand climbed through the morning peak — reaching 7,897 MW at 18:05 AEST — prices locked into a sustained 110–153 $/MWh band, with a single spike to 153.60 $/MWh at the 17:00 AEST dispatch interval coinciding with demand of 7,714 MW. The current 130.90 $/MWh print reflects demand recovering from its midday and afternoon lull back toward the 6,500+ MW range as the evening load builds.

The day's demand profile followed a textbook autumn weekday shape. Demand peaked in the morning commute window between 17:00–18:00 AEST, then eased through the midday period — falling to around 5,700–5,800 MW through the 01:30–04:00 AEST window — before the current evening ramp. Prices tracked this trajectory closely: the 100–130 $/MWh zone materialised consistently whenever demand crossed approximately 6,200 MW on the upswing, and prices retreated to the 85–95 $/MWh range as demand softened into the 5,600–5,800 MW band in the early-to-mid afternoon. The generation mix is currently led by black coal at 2,507 MW with hydro contributing 65 MW; solar output is zero at this hour, removing any suppressing influence on price.

Forward forecasts for the 07:00 AEST (21:00 UTC) interval are anchored at 129.53 $/MWh in the most recent AEMO dispatch forecast, consistent with current price levels and indicating the market expects demand to remain firm as the evening progresses. The subsequent 07:30 AEST interval forecast drops to 107.43 $/MWh, pointing to price relief as the evening load begins to ease. Load window analysis confirms this trajectory: optimal consumption windows open from 08:30 AEST onward, with forecast prices in the 35–55 $/MWh range through the overnight period from 09:00–13:30 AEST, bottoming near 22 $/MWh in the 10:00–11:30 AEST window. Flexible demand operators and schedulable loads should target that overnight trough to capture savings of 90–110 $/MWh against the current spot rate. The active Directlink leg 3 outage notice constraining the NSW–QLD interconnector (N-MBTE_1 constraint set, NSW1-QLD1 on LHS) remains in play and may limit northward support flows if NSW pricing softens, keeping Queensland relatively self-reliant for managing its own evening peak exposure.