Commodity Demand — NSW1: Sunday 5 July 2026

NSW demand sits at 8,659 MW at 06:25 AEST, up from a 7,177 MW overnight trough near 01:15-02:00, and spot price has climbed with it to $99.07/MWh. The demand-price relationship through the past 24 hours is tight: every push above 10,000 MW during the 06:30-09:00 window drove prices into the $95-111/MWh band, peaking at $111.01/MWh at 07:00 as demand hit 10,346 MW. Conversely, the overnight trough below 7,500 MW saw prices collapse to single digits and low-$40s/MWh, including a $9.95/MWh print at 01:00. This morning's ramp from 7,177 MW to over 10,800 MW in six hours (07:45 peak of 10,830 MW) illustrates NSW's steep demand-price curve during the cold-weather morning peak, consistent with heating demand of 4.8 (on today's scale) and a 13.2°C current temperature with 98% cloud cover suppressing solar output to near zero.

AEMO's forecast points to a second, sharper peak building through tonight and tomorrow morning. Forecast RRP climbs from $102/MWh at 21:00 tonight to $114.80/MWh by 22:00, easing into the low-$70s/MWh overnight, before the real pressure builds Monday morning: forecast prices reach $111.01/MWh by 07:00, $121.18/MWh by 08:00, and a session high of $123.74/MWh at 12:00 tomorrow. This trajectory reflects compounding cold-weather demand with limited rooftop solar offset — daily outlook confirms just 2.6% average solar potential for today and thin wind potential of 10%, keeping renewable contribution constrained through the diurnal peak.

Current generation mix underscores the tight supply-demand balance: black coal is carrying 5,234 MW (the largest single share), wind 1,389 MW, and hydro 786 MW, with renewables at 30.74% of the mix and carbon intensity at 0.608 tCO2/MWh. Notably, AEMO issued and then cancelled a market intervention direction in NSW yesterday (cancelled effective 01:00 today), which had required Transgrid to disconnect the Darlington Point, Riverina 1, and Riverina 2 batteries — this removed meaningful fast-response capacity from the network during the cancellation window and