Regional Outlook — SA1: Wednesday 17 June 2026
The spot price in South Australia sits at -$2/MWh as of 06:30 AEST, continuing a sustained run of negative and near-zero pricing that has dominated the region since approximately 21:00 AEST last night. Reviewing the 24-hour price history, the market traded between $8–$53/MWh through the pre-dawn morning peak (roughly 15:00–18:30 AEST), before collapsing negative from midday onward as generation outpaced demand. Total demand currently sits at 1,487 MW — well below the morning peak of approximately 2,009 MW recorded around 18:25 AEST — with mid-winter overnight temperatures of 12.7°C and a heating demand index of just 5.3 providing no material demand uplift at this hour.
The generation mix is wind-dominated: wind is contributing 1,647.6 MW, gas CCGT 80 MW, gas OCGT 0.1 MW, and battery 0.6 MW. Solar output is zero, consistent with pre-dawn conditions. Renewable penetration sits at 95.36% and carbon intensity is 0.0227 tCO2/MWh — both figures representative of the sustained overnight wind conditions across the state. Through the past several hours, carbon intensity has tracked between 0.016 and 0.027 tCO2/MWh, with a brief lift to 0.058 tCO2/MWh during the morning demand peak when gas generation was carrying a heavier share of load.
Predispatch forecasts point to negative pricing persisting through to at least 07:00 AEST, with the deepest print at -$20/MWh forecast for both 13:00 and 16:00 AEST — periods where wind output is expected to remain strong relative to demand. Prices are forecast to recover into positive territory from 17:00 AEST, rising to a corridor of $9.62–$17.78/MWh through the 17:00–20:30 AEST window as evening demand builds and the wind resource eases — tomorrow's wind potential index of 23.7 is well above today's overnight reading of 12.1, suggesting generation availability remains robust through the day. The price trajectory then turns negative again from approximately 23:30 AEST, with troughs forecast as deep as -$20/MWh in the early hours of 19 June. For flexible load operators and battery storage, the sustained negative price windows overnight and through tomorrow afternoon represent material arbitrage opportunity against the positive evening price band of $8–$17/MWh.
On market notices, there are no active AEMO notices directly affecting SA1 operations today. The most recently active SA-specific notice (144242) relates to a previously cancelled Forecast LOR1 condition that had been flagged for 17 June 2026 — that LOR1 was cancelled at 14:00 AEST on 11 June and did not eventuate. The MT PASA reserve notice published 16 June confirms no Low Reserve Conditions are identified across the NEM in the medium term. The only current non-conformance notice (144275) relates to YWPS4 in VIC1 — a brief -44 MW non-conformance at 11:20–11:25 AEST today — with no direct SA1 impact. No inter-regional transfer constraints currently affect the V-SA interconnector.