Regional Outlook — VIC1: Wednesday 27 May 2026

The Victoria spot price sits at $136.38/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with total demand at 5,807 MW. This is notably softer than the evening peak, which saw prices sustain above $180–$198/MWh between approximately 08:00–09:00 AEST and touched $223.53/MWh at one interval around 09:50 AEST. The 24-hour average across the price history sits in the $150–$160/MWh range, making the current interval a relative trough before this morning's demand ramp. Overnight temperatures are sitting at 9.7°C with 96% cloud cover and negligible wind potential (4.8 km/h), placing heating demand firmly in the frame as the driver of today's load shape.

The generation mix is heavily weighted towards brown coal, which is contributing 4,731 MW — approximately 81% of the 5,807 MW total demand. Gas OCGT is providing 553 MW (9.5%), wind is contributing 131 MW (2.3%), battery dispatch sits at 5 MW, hydro at 0.5 MW, and solar at 0.5 MW. Total renewable contribution stands at just 2.52%, down sharply from the 18–22% levels recorded in overnight hours when wind output was higher. Carbon intensity is 1.1311 tCO2/MWh, which is the highest point across the entire 24-hour history shown — the intensity has climbed steadily from around 0.90 tCO2/MWh at 08:30 AEST yesterday as wind generation has faded throughout the day. The weather outlook offers limited relief today: average solar potential scores just 2.2 and average wind potential 0.2 for 28 May, with 68% cloud cover forecast.

Pre-dispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC) are converging around $148–$165/MWh across the most recent runs, with the latest (20:01 UTC) landing at $148.60/MWh — a step down from earlier forecasts that were printing $183–$188/MWh for the same interval. The 07:30 AEST half-hour (21:30 UTC) is more elevated, with recent runs ranging $160–$181/MWh, suggesting the morning demand ramp will push prices back up. Forecasts for 09:00–10:00 AEST (23:00–00:00 UTC) ease back into the $119–$162/MWh band, and the midday shoulder — translated to 02:30–05:30 AEST — drops further to $77–$115/MWh as demand moderates ahead of the next evening peak. The 06:30 AEST window (20:30 UTC) forecasts re-escalate into the $163–$181/MWh range, consistent with tomorrow morning's heating demand pattern repeating.

Two market notices carry direct relevance to Victorian interconnector capability today. Market Notice 144141 (INTER-REGIONAL TRANSFER) remains active, flagging the Koorangie–Wemen 220 kV line outage with constraint set V-KOWE invoked, which constrains flows on VIC1-NSW1, V-SA, T-V-MNSP1, and V-S-MNSP1. This limits Victoria's