Commodity Demand — VIC1 — Sunday 10 May 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $123.41/MWh with total demand at 5,964 MW as of 06:35 AEST, deep into the winter morning peak. The demand-price relationship today is pronounced: the market traces a clear arc from overnight lows of ~3,940 MW with prices sub-$10/MWh (including negative pricing around 14:20–15:00 AEST) through a sharp morning ramp that added more than 2,000 MW in under two hours from 16:00 AEST, driving prices from the low $40s to above $120/MWh by 17:30 AEST. The price step-change between roughly 15:55–16:10 AEST — from $8.95/MWh to $80.28/MWh — maps almost exactly to demand crossing the 4,600 MW threshold, illustrating the steep marginal cost curve operative in Victoria's current generation mix, where brown coal provides 1,648 MW of baseload, wind contributes 116 MW, and hydro 82 MW, with gas CCGT and OCGT both at zero.

Demand has been holding in the 5,900–6,240 MW range since roughly 17:30 AEST, and prices are anchoring tightly in the $120–$128/MWh band with limited intra-interval volatility — a sign that the market is sitting near a marginal price plateau rather than chasing further demand growth. The morning peak reached 6,237 MW at 18:10 AEST; current demand at 5,964 MW represents a modest softening from that peak. With today's temperature reaching only 9.1°C at present and a forecast maximum of just 17.4°C, space heating load is sustaining elevated demand through the morning. The heating demand index sits at 8.9, consistent with a high-demand May weekday pattern.

Forecast pricing for the 07:00–07:30 AEST window (21:00–21:30 UTC) centres consistently around $122–$130/MWh across all recent forecast runs, with one outlier spike to $236/MWh in the 13:01 UTC run that was not replicated subsequently and should be treated as noise. The 07:30 AEST half-hour is attracting slightly wider forecast dispersion, with runs ranging from $123.90 to $192.74/MWh — the upper tail suggests potential for a brief price spike if demand holds firm or inter-regional flows tighten as the NEM moves through the morning peak. Grid stress scores at 80.7 reinforce that the system is operating with limited headroom.

For the remainder of today, demand trajectory is the key price driver. If demand follows the typical weekday autumn profile and begins easing from ~07:00 AEST onwards as commercial load comes online but residential heating recedes, prices should track back toward the $80–$100/MWh range through mid-morning. The load window data signals a pronounced price relief from approximately 09:00 AEST (23:00 UTC), with forecast prices dropping into the $35–$80/MWh range — consistent with overnight off-peak conditions as demand retreats below the 5,000 MW level. Flexibility managers and large industrial consumers with interruptible load have a clear signal: exposure at current prices is material, and the overnight window from 09:00 AEST carries substantially lower cost.