Commodity Demand — VIC1: Friday 26 June 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $115.14/MWh with demand at 5,494 MW as of 6:25 AEST — a significant retreat from the session's peak demand of 7,914 MW recorded around 8:25 AEST, which drove prices into the $170–$190/MWh band through the morning. The demand-price relationship across today's trading is clear: when demand ran above 7,500 MW during the 7:00–9:00 AEST window, prices consistently cleared in the $165–$218/MWh range, with the intraday high of $244.45/MWh occurring at 21:30 AEST during a period of elevated load around 7,134 MW. As demand has tracked steadily lower through the afternoon and into this evening — falling from over 7,800 MW at 8:55 AEST to the current 5,494 MW — prices have responded proportionally, compressing back toward the $110–$120/MWh range.

The overnight trough, which bottomed near 5,082 MW at 3:00 AEST with prices touching $69–$74/MWh, established today's demand floor. The current trajectory — demand rising gradually from an evening low of around 4,957 MW at 3:30 AEST back toward 5,494 MW now — is consistent with early winter evening load recovery driven by space heating. At 8.6°C with 100% cloud cover and a heating demand index of 9.4, residential and commercial heating load is sustaining this upward creep.

Forecasts point to prices lifting materially as demand climbs toward the morning peak. The dispatch forecast has the 7:00 AEST interval priced at $213.21/MWh, with the 9:30 AEST interval forecast at $218.69/MWh — the highest in the forward curve — before easing through the late morning and midday period toward $110–$115/MWh by 13:00–14:00 AEST. The afternoon window from 16:00 AEST onward is forecast sub-$90/MWh, reflecting lower Saturday demand and the absence of solar contributing meaningfully today (0 MW currently, marginal potential forecast through Saturday daytime at cloud cover of 65%). The steepest price sensitivity sits in the 6:30–10:00 AEST ramp — a roughly 90-minute window where demand historically climbs 1,500–2,000 MW and dispatch draws on progressively higher-cost OCGT capacity (currently 654 MW of gas OCGT online) to fill the gap.

Flexible load operators should note optimal windows are concentrated between 13:00–18:00 AEST (forecast $84–$106/MWh) and the pre-dawn period of 14:00–16:00 AEST overnight ($94–$101/MWh), saving up to $124/MWh against the Saturday morning peak. A non-conformance notice for WKIEWA1 (29 MW, 16:05–16:10 AEST) is the only active dispatch-relevant market notice for Victoria, and given its scale it has no material bearing on today's price outlook.