Commodity Demand — TAS1: Tuesday 7 July 2026
Tasmania's spot price sits at $116.08/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 1,416 MW and climbing through the morning ramp. The region has just cleared its overnight trough — demand bottomed near 1,166-1,180 MW between 03:00 and 04:00 AEST when prices held flat around $86-88/MWh — and is now tracking toward the morning peak. The data shows clear price sensitivity to demand: every 50-100 MW step up in load through the 16:00-17:00 AEST window (06:00-07:00 local) triggered price jumps into the $130-170/MWh range, peaking at $171.58/MWh when demand hit 1,540 MW just after 07:45 AEST.
Demand is forecast to build further this morning, with AEMO's price trajectory implying a strong ramp: forecast RRP jumps to $150.19/MWh by 08:00 AEST and a sharper spike to $158.44/MWh around 08:30 AEST, consistent with peak morning heating load given the current 6°C ambient temperature and 100% cloud cover suppressing any solar offset. This aligns with a heating demand index of 12 and near-zero solar potential today, meaning Tasmania's morning peak will lean entirely on hydro output, currently running at 1,569 MW against total generation of ~1,598 MW (wind contributing just 29 MW). After the morning peak, forecast prices ease back to the $88-110/MWh band through the middle of the day as demand tapers, before a secondary evening lift.
The demand-price relationship today is steep but bounded — hydro's flexibility keeps price spikes contained relative to thermal-constrained regions, with the sharpest moves occurring at the demand inflection points (06:30-08:00 and 19:00-21:00 AEST) rather than sustained elevated pricing. No credible network contingencies are currently active in TAS1; the recent lightning-related reclassifications on the Sheffield-George Town and Norwood-Scottsdale lines from early July have both been cancelled, so transmission constraints are not currently a factor in today's price formation. Least-cost load windows sit in the 05:00-06:00 and 04:00-05:00 AEST slots (avg $79-87/MWh), useful reference points for schedulable load ahead of tomorrow's equivalent low-demand trough.