Regional Outlook — NSW1: Sunday 24 May 2026

The NSW spot price sits at $101.02/MWh as of 06:25 AEST, with total demand at 7,769 MW and climbing. That current price represents a significant step down from the morning peak, which ran sustained above $110–$140/MWh between roughly 15:00 and 19:00 AEST, with an intraday high of $142.67/MWh at 18:45 AEST. The 24-hour price profile shows a clear overnight trough in the $56–$70/MWh range before a sustained morning ramp, and today is tracking a similar pattern with prices now re-ascending into the evening peak window.

The generation mix at 06:00 AEST is dominated by black coal at 5,674.94 MW, with hydro contributing 788.80 MW and wind at 376.96 MW. Solar output is effectively zero at 0.01 MW, consistent with overnight conditions — today's forecast shows a max solar potential of 5.3, meaning some solar contribution will emerge mid-morning but will remain moderate given 52% average cloud cover forecast for the day. Battery discharge sits at a negligible 0.02 MW, and both gas OCGT and gas CCGT are at zero. Total renewable penetration sits at 17.04% and carbon intensity is 0.73 tCO2/MWh, the highest point in the past 24 hours. Carbon intensity tracked as low as 0.52 tCO2/MWh overnight when hydro and wind held a larger share of a lower demand profile — the daytime demand ramp has compressed renewable penetration from a peak of around 41% in the early hours.

Predispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST interval are converging on $110.21/MWh, down from earlier forecasts that had the same interval priced as high as $135.61/MWh. The 07:30 AEST interval forecasts are less settled, ranging from $120–$152/MWh across recent runs, which reflects genuine uncertainty around the evening peak magnitude. Load window data points to the overnight valley — from approximately 09:00 AEST through to 13:30 AEST — as the lowest-cost consumption window, with prices indicated in the $40–$75/MWh range. The morning shoulder from 05:00–05:30 AEST is firming toward $85–$94/MWh, consistent with the return of heating demand as overnight temperatures sit at 14.6°C with overcast skies and negligible wind.

The most relevant active market notice for NSW is the 17 May power system event (Notice 144117) confirming the Upper Tumut Units 1–4 were restored to service at 13:27 AEST on 18 May following their non-credible contingency trip — no current operational risk from that event. A non-conformance for NSW unit BW02 was declared 18 May (Notice 144115) for a 41 MW deviation but is now historical. There are no active NSW-specific constraint sets or reserve notices in the current notice stack. The SA intervention event issued 24 May (Notice 144136) was cancelled at 12:20 AEST the same day (Notice 144138), and the Tailem Bend 275 kV East Bus outage (Notice 144139) invoked the S-TB275_E_BUS constraint set affecting the V-