Regional Outlook — VIC1: Thursday 4 June 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $78.57/MWh as of 06:30 AEST, with total demand at 6,010 MW and rising through the evening ramp. That price level is consistent with the past two hours of trading — the $75–$81/MWh band has held since around 06:00 AEST — but represents a sharp step-up from the overnight and midday trough, where prices repeatedly dipped below $15/MWh and turned briefly negative between 14:40 and 15:00 AEST (bottoming at -$15.41/MWh). The morning peak was the session's most volatile window, with prices spiking to $104.10/MWh at 16:40 AEST before settling back as demand pulled through. The 24-hour volume-weighted average sits in the mid-$40s/MWh range, meaning the current evening price is running materially above the day's mean.

The generation mix at the latest interval (06:00 AEST trading interval) shows brown coal contributing 4,359 MW, wind 1,585 MW, battery 206 MW, and hydro 43 MW. Gas OCGT and CCGT are both at zero. Wind is supplying approximately 26% of the dispatch stack and battery dispatch is elevated, consistent with peak-period discharge. Solar output is zero — as expected for a winter evening. Renewable penetration sits at 29.62% on the latest carbon interval, down sharply from the 49–51% range recorded during the middle of the day when wind was stronger. Carbon intensity is currently 0.8586 tCO2/MWh, the highest reading of the day and up from a session low of 0.5955 tCO2/MWh recorded around 15:00 AEST. The shift reflects a tighter wind contribution as evening demand builds and the brown coal baseload share rises proportionally.

Pre-dispatch forecasts for the 07:00 AEST half-hour (21:00 UTC) are converging tightly around $78–$79/MWh, with the most recent run at $78.61/MWh — closely aligned with the current spot, suggesting no major surprise is priced in for the immediate next interval. The 07:30 AEST half-hour (21:30 UTC) forecasts are firmer, clustering in the $72–$75/MWh range on the most recent runs after earlier pre-dispatch had the period as high as $101/MWh — that softening indicates the market has revised down its tightness expectations for the later period. From 09:00 AEST onward, the forward window shows prices stepping down into the $38–$57/MWh range across the early hours of Friday morning, with the lowest forecast windows appearing in the 10:30–11:30 AEST band at $22–$35/MWh. Demand is forecast to track below 4,700 MW through that window on a typical Friday pattern.

On market notices, no active constraints are directly binding in Victoria right now. The Eildon PS – Mt Beauty 220 kV dual-circuit contingency reclassification (Market Notices 144197/144198) was issued and then cancelled on 3 June — no constraint sets were invoked and the lines have reverted to non-credible status. A Heywood interconnector test notice (144186) raised the SA-to-VIC flow limit to 600 MW