Regional Outlook — QLD1: Saturday 13 June 2026
The Queensland spot price sits at $72.50/MWh as of 06:30 AEST, with demand at 5,682 MW. Tracing the overnight session, prices collapsed through the small hours — touching negative territory between roughly 09:20 and 10:40 AEST (UTC 23:20–00:40) as overnight demand fell below 4,400 MW — before recovering sharply into the morning peak, where prices sustained $85–$89/MWh from 17:00 to 19:00 AEST. The current $72.50/MWh sits materially above the sub-$40/MWh 24-hour overnight average but well below the morning peak readings, reflecting a typical post-peak evening taper.
The generation mix at the most recent interval (05:55 AEST) shows black coal at 3,921 MW (approximately 69% of supply), gas OCGT at 654 MW (12%), wind at 926 MW (16%), hydro at 137 MW (2%), with battery and solar contributing negligible output at 0.9 MW and 0.03 MW respectively. Renewable penetration sits at 18.87%, down sharply from an overnight high of 54.4% when low demand amplified wind's share. Carbon intensity is 0.6873 tCO2/MWh, tracking near its daily peak — the overnight trough reached 0.3972 tCO2/MWh at approximately 09:25 AEST when renewables were above 54% of the mix. With solar generation effectively zero at this hour, the high-carbon, low-renewable profile will persist until after sunrise.
The predispatch curve points to a step-up through the early morning then a sustained elevated band. Prices are forecast to lift to $77.21/MWh at 07:00 AEST, accelerate through $85.40/MWh by 17:00, and peak at $95.11/MWh around 18:00 AEST as the winter morning demand surge sets in — consistent with the pattern seen through today's session. Prices are then forecast to ease through the afternoon, retreating to the low-$70s/MWh by 23:00–00:00 AEST before dropping again to the $11–$40/MWh range in the early hours of Monday morning, replicating the overnight low-price window observed today.
The key market notice affecting Queensland today is the inter-regional transfer limit variation (MN 144266) covering planned outages of the Blackwall–Tarong 875 275kV line and South Pine–Tarong 832 275kV line, both scheduled from 08:00 13 June through to 17:00 14 June — meaning these constraints remain active through the forecast morning peak. AEMO notes the outages completed at 08:40 on 13 June and constraint sets Q-TRSP_832 and Q-X_TRSP+TRBK2 were revoked at that point, but network engineers should confirm current constraint status given the 17:00 14 June end time. Additionally, the inter-regional constraint set CA_BRIS_593C7214, invoked on 11 June to manage QLD power system security via the N-Q-MNSP1 interconnector, remains active as of the latest notice. Traders with cross-border exposure between QLD and NSW should factor both items into position