Commodity Demand — VIC1: Sunday 24 May 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $88.97/MWh at 06:25 AEST with demand at 5,346 MW and rising. The price-demand relationship over the past several hours is clear: demand troughed near 4,290 MW in the mid-afternoon at prices in the $65–$70/MWh range, then climbed steadily through the evening. The inflection came around 19:30–20:10 AEST as demand crossed back above 5,000 MW, with prices responding sharply — peaking at $98.43/MWh at 20:10 AEST before settling back to the current $88.97/MWh. This is a textbook winter evening ramp, driven by a 11.4°C ambient temperature, 87% cloud cover, and a heating demand index of 6.6 — conditions that suppress solar to zero and sustain resistive load well into the night.

The day's price-demand arc tells the full story. The morning peak between 07:00–09:00 AEST saw demand hit 6,708 MW — the session high — with prices consistently at $110–$146/MWh, including a spike to $146.44/MWh at 08:45 AEST. Demand then eased through the midday trough to a low of around 4,290 MW by 17:05 AEST, with prices correspondingly softening into the $60–$80/MWh range. The current evening ramp is tracking the same demand corridor as the morning, though at a lower level — 5,346 MW versus the 6,700 MW morning peak — consistent with a Monday public holiday (Queen's Birthday) load profile that suppresses commercial and industrial demand.

Forecast pricing for the 21:00 AEST half-hour is centred around $103.77/MWh based on the most recent dispatch forecast, with the 21:30 AEST interval forecast clustering around $105–$108/MWh. Demand is still building — the trajectory over the last 25 minutes shows a 360 MW increase — and with no solar contribution and wind at just 607 MW, brown coal at 4,577 MW is carrying the bulk of the load. The grid stress score of 81 and renewable penetration of 11.9% confirm the grid is operating in a tight but not critical configuration. Prices are expected to remain in the $90–$110/MWh band through the 21:00–22:00 AEST window before the load-window data suggests a gradual easing into the $60–$85/MWh range from 23:00 AEST onward as demand retreats.

One network notice warrants attention: the Tailem Bend 275 kV East Bus outage (Market Notice 144139) has invoked constraint set S-TB275_E_BUS on the V-SA interconnector. This limits the SA-VIC transfer pathway, reducing Victoria's import optionality from SA at the margin. Given Victoria is effectively self-supplying on brown coal tonight, the direct price impact is limited, but any tightening in the 21:00–22:00 AEST period — particularly if a brown coal unit steps back — would be amplified by the reduced interconnector headroom.