Regional Outlook — NSW1: Friday 31 July 2026
The NSW spot price sits at $97.64/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 8,559 MW. This is well down from last night's evening peak, when prices spiked to $531.85/MWh at 07:30 AEST (30 July) as demand climbed above 11,400 MW — a reminder that NSW winter evening peaks remain volatile even with moderate absolute demand. Prices have since eased through overnight troughs as low as $7.85/MWh before climbing back into the $80-140/MWh band through today's morning shoulder.
Generation mix at the current interval is dominated by black coal at 6,270 MW, followed by hydro at 994 MW and wind at 734 MW. Solar is minimal at 42 MW given the 20:30 timestamp is post-sunset, gas OCGT contributes just 40 MW, and batteries are discharging 82 MW. Renewable penetration sits at 22.69%, with carbon intensity at 0.6792 tCO2/MWh — both figures reflecting the low-wind, no-solar overnight conditions. Carbon intensity has trended upward from a low of 0.4686 tCO2/MWh at 05:00 AEST (31 July, when renewables briefly reached 46.68%) as the day progressed and coal output firmed to cover the evening peak.
Predispatch forecasts show prices retreating to the $65-90/MWh range through the next few hours before falling further overnight, with a trough near $13.26/MWh forecast around 00:30 AEST tomorrow. Prices then rebuild through tomorrow's morning peak, reaching $111.02/MWh by 08:00-09:00 AEST as demand ramps. Best-value load-shifting windows fall between 00:30-03:00 AEST, with average prices as low as $28.85/MWh, though risk ratings on these overnight windows range from low to high given demand variability.
On notices, Directlink's three interconnector cables returned to service at 14:30 AEST today following a planned outage, with the associated constraint set N-X_MBTE_3 revoked — this should ease inter-regional transfer constraints between NSW and QLD. A short-notice outage on the South Morang-Sydenham 500kV line in VIC has triggered constraint set V-SMSY affecting the VIC1-NSW1 interconnector, worth monitoring for any spillover effects on NSW pricing. No NSW-specific reserve or intervention notices are currently active.