Commodity Demand — QLD1: Thursday 28 May 2026

Queensland spot price sits at $107.97/MWh with demand at 6,430 MW as of 06:30 AEST, well off the session peak of 7,695 MW recorded around 17:55 AEST during the morning demand surge. The price-demand relationship across today's trading has been consistent: every demand excursion above 7,400 MW pushed the RRP into the $132–$139/MWh band, while the mid-afternoon trough near 5,348 MW (around 03:05 AEST) saw prices compress to $80.75/MWh. The solar window between roughly 14:10–17:10 AEST drove the afternoon demand floor — with rooftop and utility solar suppressing operational demand into the low 5,300s MW — and produced a sustained pricing floor at $80.75/MWh that held for nearly three hours. The pre-dawn period between 14:35–15:45 UTC (00:35–01:45 AEST) saw spot prices briefly go negative (down to -$25.01/MWh) as generation oversupply coincided with demand in the 6,100–6,290 MW range, demonstrating the sensitivity of Queensland's merit order to even modest demand softening when excess capacity is online.

Demand is now rising from the afternoon base back toward the evening peak profile. The trajectory from 5,452 MW at 03:00 AEST through 5,711 MW at 05:00 AEST and 6,431 MW now tracks a typical winter Friday evening ramp. Forecast RRPs for the 07:00 and 07:30 AEST half-hour intervals are anchored at $104–$108/MWh — a material step down from the morning peak pricing — suggesting NEMDE anticipates demand settling in the 6,400–6,600 MW range rather than revisiting the 7,500+ MW levels seen during this morning's peak. Temperature at 15.9°C with 100% cloud cover and minimal solar potential (solar output is now effectively zero at 0.13 MW) removes any afternoon demand suppression effect, meaning demand will track heating load rather than benefit from solar offset for the remainder of the trading day.

The generation mix currently supporting 6,431 MW is black coal at 4,864 MW, wind at 1,195 MW, gas OCGT at 375 MW, battery at 205 MW, and hydro at 116 MW, with renewables at 22.44% of the mix. Wind at 1,195 MW is a meaningful contributor to price containment — sufficient to displace marginal gas capacity at current demand levels. Should demand push above 6,800–7,000 MW during the evening peak (consistent with the morning pattern), gas OCGT headroom and battery dispatch will become the marginal price-setting units, which historically placed the RRP in the $120–$140/MWh corridor for Queensland. Traders should monitor the 07:30–09:00 AEST window (21:30–23:00 UTC) as the critical demand escalation period, where a 300–400 MW uplift from current levels would be sufficient to shift price into the next marginal band.