Commodity Demand — VIC1: Thursday 30 July 2026
Victoria's spot price sits at $189.48/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 7,008 MW and climbing through the morning ramp. The current settlement is a step down from the 07:00-13:00 window overnight, where demand peaked near 8,500 MW and prices spiked repeatedly above $300/MWh, including a $526.14/MWh print at 11:35 and $499.41/MWh at 11:20 — a pattern that flags Victoria's price-demand elasticity is highly non-linear once total demand pushes past roughly 8,000 MW. Below that threshold, prices track a much flatter band of $60-190/MWh; above it, every additional 100-200 MW of load appears to add tens of dollars per MWh as thermal and battery capacity is progressively called on.
The forecast trajectory for today points to another sharp escalation into the evening peak. AEMO's price forecasts show a jump from $189.48/MWh at 06:30 to $310-395/MWh across 07:00-08:30 AEST, driven by the same evening ramp pattern seen in yesterday's data, where demand climbed from 5,500 MW in the afternoon trough to over 8,400 MW by 08:00-08:55. This is consistent with winter heating load: current temperature is 4.7°C with heating demand at 13.3 and solar potential at zero, reinforcing that generation is leaning on thermal and storage assets rather than solar through the morning.
Overnight, demand troughed near 6,200-6,600 MW between 02:00-05:00 AEST with prices correspondingly falling to $20-70/MWh, confirming the low-demand periods align with gridIQ's identified load-shifting windows (05:30-06:30 AEST at $41.79/MWh average, and 03:00-05:30 AEST in the $66-67/MWh range). Today's generation mix at the current interval shows brown coal supplying 4,713 MW, gas OCGT at 683 MW, and battery output at 497 MW covering peak-shaving duties, with wind contributing just 190 MW given low wind potential (0.1). Demand-side risk factors include the active VIC constraint set (CA_SYDS_597B5710) managing interconnector security on the SA link, and ongoing negative settlement residue activity on the VIC-SA and VIC-TAS interconnectors, both of which can add volatility to price formation during the demand ramp this afternoon and evening.