Commodity Demand — VIC1: Friday 29 May 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $10.72/MWh at 06:30 AEST with total demand at 4,794 MW — well below the evening peak of 7,175 MW reached around 17:55 AEST and a significant step down from the 6,700–6,750 MW range that drove prices to $272.66/MWh at the session's intraday high. The price-demand relationship across today's data is pronounced: demand above 6,500 MW consistently attracted prices in the $110–$200/MWh band, while the subsequent demand retreat below 5,000 MW through the overnight trough (reaching 4,325 MW around 03:45 AEST) anchored prices at the $10.50–$11.00/MWh floor. The current 4,794 MW reading reflects typical Saturday pre-dawn conditions with 10.8°C ambient temperature, minimal solar input, and a heating demand index of 7.2 — light relative to weekday winter norms, which is consistent with the subdued pricing.

Wind is generating 2,027 MW and brown coal is supplying 3,847 MW, together covering the majority of current demand with no gas OCGT or CCGT dispatch and negligible battery output. This supply surplus at low demand is the direct mechanism holding prices near the market floor. Forecasts for the 07:00 AEST interval (21:00 UTC target) converged around $19.18/MWh in the most recent pre-dispatch runs, suggesting the market expects demand to build modestly as Melbourne wakes but does not anticipate a return to the high-demand, high-price conditions of the preceding evening peak. The Heywood M1 transformer, which had been on planned outage since 25 May, returned to service at 09:20 AEST Friday, restoring full inter-regional transfer capacity on the VIC–SA interconnector and removing the V-HYTX_M12 constraint set — a net positive for supply adequacy heading into today.

Saturday's demand trajectory is the key price driver to watch. Today's forecast maximum temperature of 17.2°C limits heating-driven demand amplification, and with wind potential rated at just 1.3 for the day, wind output is likely to moderate from its current strong position. That combination — softening wind, gradually rising Saturday demand through the morning, and brown coal running near baseload capacity — positions prices to drift upward from the current floor into the $20–$50/MWh range through the 08:00–14:00 AEST window, consistent with the load window forecasts clustering around $10–$20/MWh for the early morning and stepping to $15–$20/MWh by 17:00–18:00 AEST. A repeat of Friday evening's $200+/MWh spike is not indicated absent a significant demand surge or unexpected generation loss, given the reduced weekend load profile and restored interconnector capacity.