Load Advisor: Monday 8 June 2026

Victoria and South Australia present the strongest load-shifting opportunity on the NEM today. VIC1 prices are sitting at $1.15/MWh and SA1 at $1.02/MWh right now, and predispatch forecasts show both regions will move into sustained negative pricing from around 09:30 AEST tonight through to at least 04:30 AEST tomorrow morning. In VIC1, the deepest negative prices will arrive in the 15:00–19:00 AEST window tomorrow afternoon (−$6.67/MWh across multiple intervals), with a second negative band forecast from 00:30–07:30 AEST tonight. SA1 mirrors this structure, with negative prices forecast continuously from 10:30 AEST tomorrow through to 04:00 AEST Wednesday, troughing at −$6.45/MWh around 02:00 AEST Wednesday. Flexible operators in these regions should target both windows — and in SA1, the 03:00–07:30 AEST overnight band tonight (down to −$5.66/MWh) is accessible now.

NSW1 and QLD1 offer genuine but more modest shifting value. NSW1 prices currently sit at $86.77/MWh; predispatch shows a clean collapse to the $39–41/MWh range across the 07:30–10:30 AEST window tonight, sustained through to approximately 12:30 AEST tomorrow morning before rising sharply. QLD1 is at $90.40/MWh now and will remain elevated — peaking above $100/MWh in the 14:30–16:00 AEST window this morning — before easing to a $39.75/MWh floor between 07:30 and 10:30 AEST tonight. Both regions face a strong morning ramp from around 13:30 AEST today (NSW forecast $98–107/MWh at 14:00–14:30 AEST; QLD $93–103/MWh at 14:00–15:00 AEST) — this is the primary peak period to avoid across the eastern mainland today.

Tasmania is the outlier: prices are at $80.20/MWh and predispatch shows only modest relief, with the best available windows offering savings rated "fair" — around $68–73/MWh across isolated intervals between 03:00 and 19:00 AEST. There is no sustained low-price band comparable to the mainland. Tasmanian load managers should target the 07:00 AEST (forecast $68.22/MWh) and 10:30–13:00 AEST ($68.50–69.38/MWh) intervals as the least-cost options, but savings are limited to roughly $8–13/MWh against the current reference. WA1 sits at $103.55/MWh and operates outside the NEM dispatch framework; no predispatch windows are available in this dataset.

**Concrete scheduling recommendation:** VIC1 and SA1 flexible loads should be dispatched in two blocks — the first starting from 09:30 AEST tonight through 07:30 AEST tomorrow morning (negative pricing throughout), and the second from 20:30 AEST tomorrow through to at least 04:00 AEST Wednesday (again negative). NSW1 and QLD1 operators should target the