Commodity Demand — SA1: Monday 13 July 2026

South Australian demand sits at 1,479 MW as of 06:25 AEST, with spot price at $0/MWh — a sharp contrast to the overnight trough where demand ranged 1,350-1,900 MW against consistently negative prices, including a $-204.05/MWh print at 15:35 AEDT (05:35 local) driven by 1,360 MW of wind generation against soft demand. Wind currently supplies 1,360 MW of SA1 generation, with gas contributing just 43 MW and battery output at 8 MW, leaving the region at 97.2% renewable penetration and carbon intensity of 0.0137 tCO2/MWh.

The overnight-to-morning demand ramp is the key driver to watch. Demand climbed from a low near 1,370 MW around 04:00 AEST to over 2,100 MW by 08:15-08:40 AEST, and price responded accordingly — climbing from negative territory through $18-60/MWh as the ramp hit, peaking at $59.55/MWh multiple times between 08:15 and 09:25 AEST. This confirms SA1's price curve is highly demand-elastic in this range: once demand crosses roughly 2,000 MW, wind output alone can't cover the ramp and marginal gas/import-based pricing pushes RRP up by $60-100/MWh swings within 30-minute windows.

AEMO's forecast trajectory points to a much sharper afternoon-evening price escalation than this morning's ramp. Forecast RRP holds near $18-33/MWh through the evening (21:00-23:30 AEST), dips to near-zero or negative overnight (00:30-06:00 AEST target times, consistent with the low-demand trough pattern), then spikes to $101/MWh by 07:30 AEST and holds at $101-105/MWh from 09:00 AEST through 16:00 AEST — a sustained six-hour high-price block. This coincides with weak wind potential forecast for today (avg 2.1%) and modest solar potential (11.9%), meaning tomorrow's midday demand will likely lean more heavily on gas and imports than today's wind-dominated profile, reinforcing the elevated forecast band.

No demand-side constraints specific to SA1 appear in today's notices — the active items concern TAS1 contingency reclassifications and VIC1-SA1/NSW1 negative settlement residue constraints, the latter reflecting the low-