Commodity Demand — VIC1: Wednesday 3 June 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $36.66/MWh at 06:25 AEST with demand at 5,811 MW — a rapidly accelerating figure that has climbed from a daily trough near 4,489 MW at 03:10 AEST. The price trajectory across today's data tells a clear story: negative prices dominated from approximately 14:00 through to 06:00 AEST as demand fell into the 4,500–5,300 MW range, with the floor touching -$4.57/MWh. The moment demand pushed back through 5,300 MW after 06:00 AEST, prices flipped positive and are now accelerating sharply — from $5.04/MWh at 06:00 to $49.78/MWh at 06:15 and settling at $36.66/MWh at 06:25. This morning's demand ramp is tracking the typical Victorian winter pattern: cold temperatures (10.2°C, 95% cloud cover, heating demand index at 7.8) are pulling consumption up fast as households and commercial buildings activate heating loads at the start of the working day.

The demand trajectory points squarely toward a sustained high-price period through this morning's peak. Today's generation mix at the 06:00 AEST trading period shows wind at 3,481 MW and brown coal at 3,111 MW as the primary contributors, with hydro at 49 MW and battery at 0.2 MW — gas CCGT and OCGT are both at zero output. With demand now rising and forecast to continue climbing toward what yesterday peaked at approximately 7,765 MW around 08:00–09:00 AEST, the market will need to call on additional capacity as wind and coal near their combined ceiling. The most recent pre-dispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST interval are printing in the $33–$35/MWh range, a material step down from the $47–$60/MWh range forecast earlier this morning for the same interval — indicating that updated dispatch modelling is seeing better supply coverage than initially anticipated, though prices remain firmly elevated relative to the overnight trough.

For today's price outlook, the key demand inflection points are well-defined by the historical pattern in the data. Demand peaks in the 07:30–09:00 AEST window — yesterday it reached 7,765 MW — and prices during that period ran $44–$64/MWh. A repeat of that demand level today is plausible given near-identical weather conditions (max 13.4°C, full cloud cover, average wind potential of 18.9). The afternoon period from roughly 11:30–19:00 AEST saw demand fall back toward 4,500–4,700 MW and prices return to negative territory, a pattern likely to repeat today as rooftop solar provides minimal output (solar potential near zero) but midday commercial load eases. The evening ramp — demand lifted from 4,727 MW at 05:00 AEST back toward 5,811 MW by 06:25 AEST — is already underway and driving the current price uplift. Load windows forecast the 07:00 AEST interval at $33–$35/MWh and the 08:00 AEST interval near $35/MWh, with overnight intervals from 10:00–12:00 AEST dropping back to $10.50/MWh as demand e