Regional Outlook — TAS1 — Thursday 7 May 2026
The spot price in Tasmania sits at $88.24/MWh as of 06:25 AEST, down from the overnight peak of $97.63/MWh recorded around 07:00 AEST and a brief spike to $121.49/MWh at 16:10 AEST. The broad 24-hour pattern shows prices tracking in two distinct bands: a higher band of $96–$99/MWh through the morning peak demand period (demand topped 1,366 MW around 18:00 AEST) and a softer band of $74–$88/MWh through the afternoon and evening as demand eased to sub-1,000 MW levels during the shoulder. Current demand sits at 1,149 MW, consistent with a typical Friday early-morning profile for the state.
The generation mix is running entirely on hydro and wind, with hydro contributing 223 MW and wind contributing 201 MW as of the latest interval. Gas OCGT output is zero. Carbon intensity sits at 0 tCO2/MWh with renewable penetration at 100%, a position maintained consistently across every recorded interval in the dataset. Weather conditions are overcast (97% cloud cover) with a temperature of 9.3°C and low wind speeds at 9.5 km/h, placing minor upward pressure on heating demand (8.7 index) but not enough to push demand materially above current levels.
Predispatch pricing points to stability in the near term. The 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC) target is forecast at $87–$88/MWh across multiple predispatch runs, with the 07:30 AEST target firming slightly to $88–$96/MWh depending on the run. The 08:00–08:30 AEST window (21:30–22:00 UTC) forecasts step up to the $96–$97/MWh range, consistent with morning demand ramp behaviour. Looking further ahead, forecasts for the 17:00–18:30 AEST window (06:30–08:00 UTC) show prices in the $76–$88/MWh range, softening relative to tonight's evening peak trajectory.
The one active market notice of direct relevance to Tasmanian interconnector flows is the inter-regional transfer limit variation (Notice 144064) issued at 05:55 AEST today, reporting an unplanned outage of the Armidale No.3 330/132 kV Transformer in NSW at 05:08 AEST with constraint set N-AR_TX invoked at 05:15 AEST. This constraint sits on the N-Q-MNSP1 interconnector LHS, which affects NSW–Queensland flows rather than the Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) directly, but tighter NEM interconnector conditions can have secondary pricing implications for Tasmania. No active LOR conditions are currently in force for TAS1; the LOR1 declared for 5 May was cancelled prior to that date. Traders should monitor Basslink flow direction and capacity closely as morning demand ramps, given the broader NEM constraint environment.