Commodity Demand — VIC1: Thursday 9 July 2026

Victoria's spot price sits at $132.56/MWh at 06:25 AEST with demand at 7,048 MW, up sharply from the 6,150-6,400 MW trough recorded between 02:30 and 05:00 AEST overnight. The current interval sits mid-ramp into the morning peak, and the price-demand relationship over the past 24 hours has been steep: demand above 8,200 MW consistently pushed prices past $200/MWh, peaking at $273.55/MWh at 06:55 AEST yesterday when demand hit 7,786 MW, and briefly touching $257/MWh multiple times through the evening peak when demand exceeded 8,600 MW. Below 7,000 MW overnight, prices fell to a low of $60.16/MWh at 04:25 AEST, confirming demand is the dominant price driver today given brown coal (4,623 MW) and gas OCGT (761 MW) are setting the marginal cost at higher output levels.

AEMO's forecast trajectory shows prices climbing to $169-192/MWh through the 21:00-23:00 AEST window tonight as demand rises into the evening peak, consistent with yesterday's pattern where demand above 8,300 MW drove prices into the $200-270/MWh range. Overnight, forecast prices ease back to $94-102/MWh by 01:00-03:00 AEST as demand drops toward the 6,000-6,400 MW band, before a further steep decline forecast for tomorrow afternoon — dropping to single digits ($10-20/MWh) between 15:30 and 18:00 AEST tomorrow as demand-side conditions ease and minimum demand periods coincide with available generation headroom.

Demand-side risk factors are limited today. AEMO cancelled a Forecast LOR1 (Lack of Reserve) condition for VIC1 on 08 July, and no active reserve shortfall notices apply to today's trading day. A brief Heywood-Mortlake 500kV line outage overnight (22:41-22:55 hrs) triggered temporary constraint set V-HYMO limiting interconnector flows on VIC1-NSW1, V-SA and T-V-MNSP1, but this was resolved within 14 minutes with no lasting demand-side impact. Cold overnight temperatures (4.1°C, heating demand index 13.9) are supporting the current demand ramp, with today's forecast top of 14.1