Commodity Demand — VIC1 — Thursday 7 May 2026

Victoria sits at $8.95/MWh with total demand at 5,540 MW as of 06:30 AEST, well below the day's peaks and consistent with the early-morning trough following last night's evening ramp. The price-demand relationship across today's data is textbook: demand troughed at around 4,280–4,350 MW during the 03:00–05:30 AEST window, coinciding with sustained negative prices as low as -$0.10/MWh, while the morning ramp from 05:30 AEST drove demand through 6,700 MW and prices into the $50–$71/MWh range by 07:00–08:00 AEST. That morning peak cleared around 7,750 MW at $53–$71/MWh before demand retreated through the business day as solar displaced load, pulling prices back toward zero and briefly negative through 12:00–17:00 AEST. The price elasticity is sharp: each 500 MW increment above 7,000 MW correlates with a step-change toward the $50–$55/MWh band, while demand below 5,500 MW consistently produces sub-$10/MWh or negative outcomes.

Demand is now rebuilding from its afternoon-evening trough of roughly 4,280 MW, tracking upward through 5,540 MW and accelerating. The forecast for 07:00 AEST (21:00 UTC) points to $33–$36/MWh, rising from the current $8.95/MWh, which is consistent with demand climbing back toward the 6,500–7,000 MW range as the evening heating load builds into a 13.2°C evening with 4.8 heating degree units. Wind is generating 1,778 MW with solar at zero, so the supply stack will be carrying brown coal at 899 MW and gas OCGT at 120 MW alongside wind through the ramp. The absence of solar overnight removes any price-suppressing buffer, meaning the demand-price relationship will tighten as load climbs. Traders should expect prices to step from the current floor into the $15–$35/MWh range by 07:30–08:00 AEST as demand crosses 6,500 MW, with sensitivity to wind output being the key variable — today's wind potential score of 10.4 provides a partial offset but is insufficient to suppress prices at peak evening demand levels.

One network notice warrants attention for Victorian traders with interconnector exposure: the Armidale No.3 330/132 kV transformer outage in NSW (invoked 05:15 AEST today) has constrained the N-Q-MNSP1 interconnector via the N-AR_TX constraint set. This does not directly bind VIC1 flows but tightens the broader NEM topology and can indirectly affect VIC–NSW transfer capacity under high-demand conditions. Tomorrow's weather outlook — 84% average cloud cover and max 16.1°C — sustains the heating demand profile with minimal solar contribution, pointing to a broadly similar intraday price shape on Saturday.