Commodity Demand — QLD1: Monday 11 May 2026

Queensland spot price sits at $85.73/MWh with total demand at 6,522 MW as of 06:30 AEST. That demand level is already climbing off today's early-morning trough — demand bottomed near 4,850 MW around 09:30–09:45 AEST before recovering through the morning. The current 6,522 MW reading is tracking the same ascending path seen in the price history, where the morning ramp from ~5,400 MW to the 7,800 MW intraday peak between 17:00 and 18:50 AEST drove prices from the low $60s up to $117.73/MWh. The price-demand relationship is tight and non-linear: demand below ~6,000 MW consistently clears in the $60–$75/MWh band, but each step above 7,000 MW pushed prices into triple digits, with the $115–$117/MWh prints arriving as demand crested at 7,614–7,821 MW. The generation mix at this interval is black coal at 2,091 MW, hydro at 85.94 MW, and gas OCGT at 0.19 MW, with solar zeroed out at this hour. Grid carbon intensity is 0.8452 tCO2/MWh with renewables contributing just 3.95% — consistent with the post-sunset, coal-dominant dispatch that has prevailed since approximately 11:00 AEST.

The forecast for the next near-term dispatch interval (07:00 AEST) has been revised down to $82.50/MWh from earlier projections that were consistently clustering around $92–$103/MWh, suggesting the market expects demand to remain in a more moderate range before today's evening ramp materialises. The evening peak is the key price risk. Based on today's temperature outlook — a mild 15.6°C currently with a forecast max of 22.8°C and heating demand of 2.4 units — residential heating load will build from around 18:00 AEST onward, consistent with the pattern visible in the history where demand crossed 6,500 MW by 15:30 AEST and prices re-entered the $80s. If today's demand trajectory mirrors the prior-day profile, Queensland should see demand push toward 7,500–7,800 MW in the 17:30–19:00 AEST window, which, on that price-demand curve, implies spot exposure in the $100–$117/MWh range absent additional supply response.

The overnight load windows signal a substantial price drop once demand retreats post-peak. Forecast prices from 08:30 AEST onward (midnight to 02:30 AEST) fall to as low as $0.03–$2.10/MWh, with several intervals showing negative prints, pointing to surplus supply once industrial and residential load falls away. Demand-side managers and flexible load operators have a clear arbitrage window: avoid exposure during the 17:30–19:30 AEST period where today's price risk is concentrated, and shift controllable load to the 23:00–03:30 AEST window where the market is pricing near or at floor. The 61% average cloud cover forecast for today will constrain solar output relative to the seven-day outlook, keeping the daytime demand response from rooftop PV lower than typical for this time of year.