Commodity Demand — QLD1: Monday 25 May 2026

Queensland spot price sits at $139.95/MWh with total demand at 6,325 MW as of 06:30 AEST. That price level is consistent with the evening demand ramp that drove the session's high of $177.81/MWh at 06:00 AEST (16:00 UTC) when demand hit 5,936 MW — notably, prices spiked on a demand figure well below today's current read, pointing to tight supply-side conditions at that hour rather than a pure demand-driven event. The clearest demand-price relationship in the data sits in the morning peak: demand climbed from roughly 5,400 MW at 13:00 AEST to a session high of 7,560 MW by 17:45 AEST, driving prices from the low-$70s/MWh up through $130–$142/MWh across that window. Demand has since eased from that peak, and current levels represent a partial post-peak taper that is consistent with the typical Tuesday evening unwind.

The price sensitivity to demand increments is material in the $6,000–$7,500 MW range. Between the overnight trough of ~4,922 MW (around 11:55 AEST) and the morning peak above 7,560 MW, prices moved from the high-$60s to over $140/MWh — a spread of roughly $75/MWh across a ~2,600 MW demand range. That implies approximately $29/MWh of price uplift per 1,000 MW of additional demand in the upper range of today's dispatch curve. The $177.81/MWh spike at 06:00 AEST and a matching spike at 10:00 AEST suggest the marginal generator dispatched at those intervals was priced materially above the prevailing stack, likely open-cycle gas or battery discharge at premium offer prices.

Forward forecasts for the next two hours (07:00–08:30 AEST) point to prices in the $116–$140/MWh band, with the most recent pre-dispatch runs settling around $120–$134/MWh. Demand is tracking its usual winter Tuesday evening trajectory — current temperatures of 16.7°C with 100% cloud cover and a heating demand index of 1.3 support sustained residential load through the 07:00–09:00 AEST window before the gradual overnight decline toward the sub-5,000 MW trough expected around 11:30–12:00 AEST. Solar potential is zero for today's forecast, meaning no midday demand suppression from rooftop PV — demand relief will come solely from reduced commercial and industrial activity as the morning progresses, not from generation-side displacement.

From a demand-side risk perspective, the earlier AEMO direction issued to Queensland on 23 May (cancelled at 14:30 AEST that day) is no longer active and does not constrain today's dispatch. The Koorangie–Wemen 220 kV outage in Victoria has invoked the V-KOWE constraint set affecting VIC1-NSW1 and other interconnectors, which can tighten the northward flow available to support Queensland if Victorian generation is constrained — a factor that raises Queensland's price floor during high-demand intervals tonight. Traders holding exposure across the 07:00–09:00 AEST window should note that the most recent pre-dispatch prints have been converging downward from earlier high forecasts (from