Regional Outlook — QLD1: Tuesday 12 May 2026

The Queensland spot price sits at $96.83/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with total demand at 6,476 MW. This is the upper end of the evening ramp, consistent with where prices have traded across the past 24 hours. The day's pattern shows a pronounced overnight trough — prices turned negative between roughly 10:00 and 11:15 AEST, bottoming at -$3.01/MWh — before climbing through the morning peak to a high of $105.95/MWh around 07:05 AEST, then easing through the midday and afternoon to a floor near $41–67/MWh, and now re-escalating through the evening demand ramp. The 24-hour average sits in the low-to-mid $70s/MWh range, so the current $96.83/MWh represents a meaningful step-up as the evening peak progresses.

The current generation mix totals approximately 3,860 MW across reported fuel types. Black coal is the largest contributor at 1,740 MW (45% of mix), followed by wind at 1,437 MW (37%), batteries at 426 MW (11%), hydro at 152 MW (4%), gas OCGT at 105 MW (3%), and utility solar at just 0.72 MW — consistent with post-sunset conditions. Renewables (wind, solar, hydro) are contributing 52.22% of the mix, with carbon intensity sitting at 0.4142 tCO2/MWh. That is a material improvement on the overnight profile, where intensity ranged between 0.74–0.84 tCO2/MWh with renewable penetration as low as 4–6% in the early hours before wind output built through the pre-dawn period. The day's cleanest window came around 14:30–15:00 AEST when intensity touched 0.2672 tCO2/MWh with renewable penetration near 69%.

Predispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST interval (21:00 UTC) are centred around $92–$97/MWh across multiple run times, with the most recent forecast at $92.73/MWh. The 07:30 AEST interval forecasts are more elevated, with several runs clustering at $105–$118/MWh, indicating expectations of continued upward price pressure through the evening peak. Flex load windows are signalling excellent value from 08:30 AEST onwards tonight, with forecast prices in the $23–$40/MWh range and negative pricing expected again in the early hours of tomorrow morning (13 May, 10:00–13:30 AEST), consistent with overnight low-demand conditions.

The most relevant active notice for Queensland is Market Notice 144024 (issued 30 April), which confirms AEMO increased the cap on Very Fast Contingency FCAS dispatch in the QLD region from 200 MW to 250 MW during periods where QLD islanding is considered credible, effective from 5 May. This reflects the ongoing management of frequency risk in a grid with growing inverter-based resources. The MT PASA reserve notice (144070, issued 12 May) confirms no Low Reserve Conditions are identified for Queensland over the medium-term outlook. The Directlink No. 3 leg outage (notice 144047, constraint N-MBTE_1 affecting the N-Q-MNSP