Commodity Demand — TAS1: Saturday 1 August 2026
Tasmania's spot price sits at $0.18/MWh at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 1050 MW recovering from the overnight trough. The current interval reflects the tail end of a deeply negative pricing period — RRP ran from -$10/MWh to -$1/MWh between 11:00pm and 5:30am AEST as demand bottomed out near 985-1030 MW, well below the region's minimum operational threshold and pushing hydro and wind output into oversupply against soft overnight load.
The demand-price relationship in Tasmania today is tight and highly elastic. Overnight demand troughs (985-1030 MW) coincided with sub-zero pricing, while this morning's demand ramp — already up from 1030 MW to 1050 MW in the last 30 minutes — is pulling prices back toward positive territory. Looking at yesterday's comparable morning ramp, demand climbing from 1090 MW to 1310 MW between 6:00am and 8:00am AEST drove prices from near-zero up to $75-85/MWh, confirming Tasmania's price curve is steep once demand crosses the 1150-1200 MW mark. Expect a similar pattern today: as the morning ramp continues past 7:00am AEST, prices should climb sharply through the $50-85/MWh band, consistent with AEMO's forecast trajectory showing RRP rising to $10/MWh by 8:00am and peaking near $40/MWh through the 9:00am-11:30am window before easing into the afternoon.
Peak demand today is likely to land in the 1250-1310 MW range based on yesterday's equivalent trading day, occurring across the 7:00-9:00am AEST morning peak. This is where price risk concentrates — yesterday's data shows prices holding in the $70-85/MWh band once demand exceeded 1250 MW, roughly 4-5x the overnight low-demand pricing. AEMO's forecast for today points to a second, more moderate demand-driven price lift around 8:30-11:00am AEST (forecast RRP $32-40/MWh) before demand and prices taper through the afternoon, dropping back to single digits or negative territory by early evening (forecast RRP -$1 to -$10/MWh from 4:00pm AEST onward).
No Tasmania-specific demand-side notices are active today; market notices affecting the region relate to interconnector transfer limits in VIC and SA, plus a TAS-VIC negative settlement residue constraint that was active late last week but is not currently flagged as live. Generation mix remains hydro-dominant (840 MW), with wind contributing 269 MW and gas OCGT 125 MW, supporting a renewable penetration of 89.9% and carbon intensity of 0.0657 tCO2/MWh at the current interval — this mix comfortably covers the demand trajectory without requiring price-driven thermal dispatch until intra-day peak load periods.