Commodity Demand — SA1: Friday 10 July 2026
South Australia's spot price sits at -$6.00/MWh at 06:25 AEST with demand at 1,412 MW, holding in negative territory for the past three hours as wind generation of 1,554 MW comfortably outstrips underlying load. The current generation mix — 1,554 MW wind, 43 MW gas CCGT, 16 MW battery, negligible gas OCGT and zero solar overnight — has pushed renewable penetration to 97.4% and carbon intensity to just 0.013 tCO2/MWh, with the demand-to-wind ratio the key driver of the sub-zero pricing rather than any demand weakness itself.
Demand has been on a steady overnight decline from Thursday evening's peak near 1,900 MW (08:00-08:25 AEST yesterday, coinciding with prices of $105-130/MWh) down through the 1,400s now, tracking the typical low-demand trough. The relationship between demand and price today is highly non-linear: every 100 MW step down in demand between 1,900 MW and 1,400 MW has been accompanied by a collapse from triple-digit pricing to negative pricing, as wind output has stayed structurally high (1,500+ MW) while load has fallen away — oversupply, not scarcity, is setting the price here.
AEMO's forecast trajectory points to prices staying compressed through the day: intervals to 23:00 AEST are forecast in the $4-8/MWh range, dipping negative again from 00:00-06:00 AEST tomorrow (as low as -$3/MWh), before a modest recovery to $13-40/MWh through tomorrow morning as demand rebuilds. Identified low-price windows (00:30-01:30, 02:00-04:00, 04:30-06:30 AEST tomorrow) show average pricing near -$1/MWh with zero carbon intensity, offering clear least-cost windows for flexible load or charging. Today's own demand curve should mirror yesterday's pattern — troughing near 700-900 MW in the pre-dawn hours before climbing sharply through morning to a probable evening peak in the 1,700-1,900 MW range, which is where price risk concentrates given yesterday's comparable period saw prices spike to $148-159/MWh on the ramp between 07:00-08:00 AEST.
No SA-specific demand-side notices are active today — the region's most recent LOR1 reserve alert (14 July, 00: