Regional Outlook — SA1: Thursday 2 July 2026
South Australia's spot price sits at -$1.02/MWh at 06:30 AEST, capping off a night session that has spent almost the entire period in negative territory — prices ranged from -$157/MWh to a brief spike of $105/MWh around 18:40-18:45 AEST yesterday evening, but have otherwise sat between -$1 and -$60/MWh for most of the last 24 hours. Demand currently sits at 1,594 MW, well down from the overnight peak near 2,400 MW recorded around 18:20-18:50 AEST. Wind generation is dominating the mix, contributing 1,564 MW against just 83 MW from gas CCGT and negligible battery and OCGT output — solar is at zero given the pre-dawn hour.
Renewables are contributing 94.93% of generation this interval, with carbon intensity down at 0.0248 tCO2/MWh, near the low end of the 0.018-0.037 range tracked over the past 24 hours. This aligns with the strong wind resource — current wind speed sits at 24.1 km/h with 21.9% wind potential, though today's outlook shows wind potential collapsing to just 5.5% on average with 75% cloud cover, limiting solar contribution as well (2% average solar potential forecast for today).
The price trajectory flips sharply through the day. Predispatch forecasts show prices holding near zero into the 07:00-08:00 AEST window before surging past $138/MWh by 08:30, climbing to $229/MWh around 09:00-09:30, and spiking to $487-875/MWh across the 12:00-18:00 AEST block, with a peak forecast of $874.87/MWh at 15:00. This coincides with AEMO's LOR2 reserve notice for SA: forecast capacity reserve requirement of 758 MW against minimum available reserve of 625 MW between 07:30 and 11:00 AEST today, reflecting the wind drop-off colliding with morning demand ramp.
Additional notices affecting the region include an active direction to AGL SA Generation's Torrens Island B2 unit, extended to 07:30 AEST today for voltage control support, and a cancelled reclassification of the Penola West-South East and Kincraig-Penola West 132kV lines as credible contingencies following resolved lightning activity. Traders should note the VIC-SA negative settlement residue constraint (NRM_VIC1_SA1) was active for part