Regional Outlook — SA1: Sunday 9 August 2026
South Australia's spot price sits at $54.52/MWh as at 06:30 AEST, following an overnight round-trip that ranged from -$7/MWh in the early hours to a peak of $116.90/MWh around 21:40 AEST last night. Demand has climbed to 1538 MW from an overnight low near 1000 MW, tracking the typical morning ramp. Prices spiked to the high $80s/$90s/MWh through the 17:30-20:00 AEST window as demand pushed past 2000 MW, before easing back toward $50-60/MWh into the current interval.
Wind is the dominant fuel source this morning, generating 1988 MW against total demand of 1538 MW — SA is a net exporter on wind alone at this snapshot. Gas CCGT contributes 83 MW, battery output sits at 6.3 MW, gas OCGT is negligible at 0.11 MW, and solar reads zero given the pre-dawn timing. This mix puts renewable penetration at 96% and carbon intensity at 0.0196 tCO2/MWh, among the cleanest intervals recorded in the past 24 hours. Carbon intensity has been volatile through the period, climbing as high as 0.126 tCO2/MWh around midday yesterday when solar dipped and renewable share fell to near 80%, before wind resurgence pulled intensity back down through the evening and overnight.
Predispatch forecasts point to a sharp escalation ahead. AEMO's latest run shows prices holding in the $50-80/MWh band through this morning before surging to $101/MWh by 18:30 AEST, $120-130/MWh through the 19:00-21:00 AEST window, and a forecast spike to $373.37/MWh at 22:00 AEST — likely reflecting a tight supply-demand balance or constraint event. Prices are expected to retreat to the $60-90/MWh range through the afternoon. Overnight into tomorrow (00:00-06:00 AEST), forecasts show a return to negative pricing, with troughs near -$15/MWh around 12:00 AEST tomorrow, consistent with strong wind output and low demand — the load-shifting windows this data identifies offer savings up to $384/MWh versus peak for flexible loads able to shift into the 00:00-05:00 AEST window.
On notices, AEMO cancelled the SA region intervention event and associated directions from 04:00 AEST today, closing out the episode that began 08 August. A non-credible contingency reclassification covering the Brinkworth-Davenport, Brinkworth-Templers West and Para-Templers West 275kV lines was also reverted at 05:30 AEST today after the severe weather warning lifted — no constraint sets remain invoked from that event. Separately, an unplanned outage of the Bayswater-Sydney West No.32 330kV line in NSW at 05:31 AEST has triggered interconnector constraints (N-Q-MNSP1, NSW1-QLD1, VIC1-NSW1) that traders should monitor for indirect impacts on interconnector flows and Victoria-SA price coupling.