Commodity Demand — VIC1: Friday 12 June 2026
Victoria's spot price sits at -$2.99/MWh at 06:30 AEST with demand at 4,458 MW — close to the overnight trough. That sub-5,000 MW figure is well below the evening peak of 6,837 MW recorded around 17:55 AEST, and the persistent negative pricing across the past several hours reflects supply comfortably exceeding demand through the early morning. Wind is generating 2,941 MW and brown coal 3,062 MW against that subdued load, producing a clear structural surplus. Carbon intensity sits at 0.6221 tCO2/MWh with renewables at 49% of the mix.
The price-demand relationship today has been sharp and consistent. When demand climbed through the 6,000–6,800 MW range during the morning peak (roughly 17:30–18:55 AEST), spot prices pushed into positive territory — hitting $88.35/MWh at 17:25 and $78.25/MWh at 17:30 — before retreating as demand rolled off post-peak. A notable outlier was -$614.77/MWh at 17:40 AEST (demand 6,629 MW), which triggered AEMO price review under Clause 3.9.2B; that interval's prices have since been confirmed unchanged, suggesting a genuine dispatch event rather than a data error. Below roughly 5,500 MW, prices have reliably tracked negative, reflecting the floor effect of must-run generation.
The forecast trajectory shifts the price outlook significantly from here. AEMO's pre-dispatch signals negative prices through to approximately 13:00 AEST (03:00 UTC), ranging from -$11.95/MWh to -$0.05/MWh as demand sits in its Saturday overnight-to-morning trough. The inflection arrives around 13:30–14:00 AEST when forecasts move to $5.08–$8.94/MWh, then escalate sharply into the morning peak window: $76.45/MWh at 16:00 AEST, sustaining above $75/MWh through to approximately 23:00 AEST, with a midday peak forecast of $86.31/MWh at 23:00 AEST. Today being a Saturday, demand is expected to top out lower than a weekday peak, but the forecast $80+/MWh range across the 18:00–21:00 AEST window indicates supply tightness relative to the generation stack once the morning heating load builds — 100% cloud cover and a maximum of 15.8°C keeps heating demand elevated with zero solar contribution.
One demand-side constraint worth noting: the APD A2 500/220 kV transformer outage (Market Notice 144236, invoked 10 June) is still active, limiting the T-V-MNSP1 interconnector. This reduces Victoria's ability to draw on or export to Tasmania during the peak window, which could amplify price volatility if the generation stack tightens above 6,500 MW. Flexibility operators and large load managers should treat the 16:00–23:00 AEST window as the primary exposure period today, with the pre-dawn trough through to ~13:30 AEST offering the deepest negative-price opportunity for deferrable load.