Regional Outlook — QLD1: Wednesday 3 June 2026
The spot price in Queensland sits at $80.83/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 6,832 MW. That's a meaningful step down from the morning peak, which pushed prices into the $130–$165/MWh range between 17:15 and 18:25 AEST during the overnight demand ramp. The overnight trough was deep — prices went negative repeatedly between 11:15 and 14:25 AEST (UTC+10), touching as low as -$25.01/MWh as demand bottomed out near 4,000 MW. The 24-hour price profile reflects the classic winter weekday shape: a sharp morning peak, a soft daytime floor driven by overnight low demand, then recovery through the evening.
The current generation mix totals approximately 6,482 MW across dispatched sources. Black coal dominates at 4,674 MW (72% of output), with wind contributing 648 MW (10%), battery storage discharging 501 MW (8%), gas OCGT at 357 MW (5%), hydro at 301 MW (5%), and solar at just 0.2 MW — consistent with post-sunset conditions. Renewables are contributing 22.4% of supply at this interval, a significant drop from the 50%+ penetration recorded during the low-demand overnight window when coal output was curtailed. Carbon intensity sits at 0.6704 tCO2/MWh, up from an overnight low of around 0.42 tCO2/MWh, reflecting the increase in coal dispatch as demand has climbed through the evening.
Predispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC) point to $90.73/MWh, with the most recent runs converging in the $84–$91/MWh band — a step up from the current $80.83/MWh as demand continues to build into the evening peak window. The 07:30 AEST interval is forecast at $90.64–$92.51/MWh across successive predispatch runs, suggesting the market expects demand to firm further. Today's weather profile (11.8°C current, clear skies, forecast max 20.3°C for Thursday) supports sustained heating demand through the morning. Wind potential remains low at 1.4, which limits any upside surprise from wind generation — traders should not expect renewable penetration to recover materially until demand drops overnight again.
On market notices, there are no active contingency reclassifications directly affecting Queensland transmission at this time. The Eildon–Mt Beauty 220 kV N-2 event in VIC1 (Notices 144197/144198) was raised and cancelled earlier in the trading day — the constraint sets were not invoked so there was no binding impact on QLD1 flows. A historical non-conformance notice for MPP_2 in QLD1 (Notice 144188, 2 June) remains active in the notice feed but is operationally closed. The NSW1 Armidale–Dumaresq/Sapphire 330 kV event (Notice 144189) that previously constrained the NSW1–QLD1 interconnector was also cancelled (Notice 144192). No current active constraints are binding on QLD interconnector flows.