Regional Outlook — VIC1 — Saturday 9 May 2026

The Victorian spot price sits at $108.99/MWh as of 06:35 AEST, with total demand at 4,552 MW. That current print is elevated relative to the overnight trough — prices dipped as low as $7.14/MWh around 15:10 AEST and held in the $24–$44/MWh band through the early hours — but have been tracking firmly above $100/MWh since around 06:20 AEST as the morning ramp takes hold. Looking across the past 24 hours, prices averaged in the high $80s to low $90s through the morning peak, spiked to a session high of $126.06/MWh around 22:00 AEST yesterday, and are now consolidating in the $100–$111/MWh range heading into the evening.

The current generation mix is dominated by brown coal at 1,662 MW, with wind contributing 159 MW and hydro 42 MW. Solar, gas CCGT, and gas OCGT are all showing zero output at this interval, consistent with after-sunset conditions and low wind potential (wind speed 5.8 km/h, 100% cloud cover at 13.4°C). Renewable penetration sits at 10.79% — down sharply from a midday high of approximately 29.5% when solar was contributing — and is consistent with the overnight/evening pattern observed across the carbon history. The generation mix today has been entirely thermal and renewables, with no gas dispatch recorded in the most recent interval.

Carbon intensity stands at 1.0884 tCO2/MWh, near the top of today's range. Intensity tracked between 0.86 and 0.90 tCO2/MWh during the midday solar window (08:00–11:30 AEST) when renewable penetration exceeded 27%, but has climbed steadily since noon as solar dropped off and brown coal output held firm. The grid stress score is 67.6/100 and carbon intensity score 37.1/100, reflecting the current high-thermal, low-renewable operating state. Pre-dispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC) show a sharp upward revision in the most recent run — the 06:01 AEST forecast had the period at $112.90/MWh, while the 07:31 AEST target at 21:30 UTC is forecast at $117.06/MWh in the latest run — indicating the dispatch algorithm is pricing in continued tightness through the early evening. Load window modelling points to material price relief from 08:30 AEST onward, with prices forecast in the $38–$41/MWh range, falling further to $9–$17/MWh between 09:00 and 13:30 AEST as overnight demand recedes.

On market notices, there are no active AEMO notices directly constraining Victorian dispatch in the current interval. The Yallourn–Rowville 7 and 8 220 kV line contingency reclassifications (notices 144056–144062) were all resolved by 7 May, with constraint set V-ROYP78_R_N-2 revoked. The most operationally relevant notice for today is the scheduled MSATS 56.2 production outage from 10:00–14:00 AEST (notice 144026), which will