Commodity Demand — QLD1: Saturday 8 August 2026
Queensland spot price sits at $68.84/MWh at 06:30 AEST with demand at 5,877 MW, down sharply from the $101/MWh evening peak seen 24 hours ago at 6,385 MW. The overnight trough saw demand fall to a low of 3,393 MW around 11:00 AEST last night, with prices turning negative (down to -$6.78/MWh) as minimum demand periods left the market oversupplied. This morning's ramp shows the classic Sunday pattern: demand climbed from ~4,900 MW at 05:20 to over 7,000 MW by 08:00 AEST, and price followed tightly, jumping from near-zero to a session peak of $105.49/MWh at 07:50 as black coal (5,164 MW) and gas peakers (118 MW OCGT) ramped to cover the morning rise.
Price sensitivity to demand is pronounced through this window: every 100-200 MW step up in demand between 05:00-08:00 AEST corresponds to $10-20/MWh moves, indicating the region is operating near the marginal cost step of gas-fired peaking capacity. Demand has since eased back from the 7,200 MW mid-morning peak to 5,877 MW currently, and price has correspondingly softened from the $105/MWh high to $68.84/MWh, tracking the demand curve closely with battery output (44 MW) providing modest smoothing at the margin.
AEMO's forecast trajectory points to further easing through the day: forecast RRP drops to $55.53/MWh by 22:30 AEST tonight, then to single digits and negative territory ($0 to -$4/MWh) through the 00:00-05:00 AEST overnight trough as demand falls toward the 3,400-3,900 MW range seen in the prior cycle. A secondary demand ramp is forecast for tomorrow morning, with prices projected to climb back to $80-84/MWh by 08:00-09:00 AEST as the same coal-led supply stack responds to the demand step-up. No QLD-specific demand-side notices are active; the only regional item is a network constraint (Tarong 275kV CB outage invoking the Q-HATR constraint set), which affects interconnector transfer capability with NSW rather than demand directly.
Current wind conditions are limited (7.4 km/h, 0.6% wind potential) and cloud cover is near-total (98%), keeping solar output at effectively zero — reinforcing coal's dominant share (5,164 MW, 88% of generation) in meeting today's demand ramp and explaining the tight price-demand coupling observed through the morning peak.