Commodity Demand — NSW1: Monday 10 August 2026
NSW demand sits at 8,994 MW as of 06:30 AEST, with spot price at $92.80/MWh, up sharply from the $92.80 print continuing an overnight climb from a sub-$50/MWh trough around 15:05 AEST yesterday. The data shows tight demand-price coupling through the evening: as demand ran from 7,223 MW at 18:00 up through 8,994 MW currently, prices tracked almost linearly upward from $66.53/MWh to $92.80/MWh — a clear signal that NSW is moving up the supply stack as the evening peak builds.
The overnight trading period illustrates this sensitivity well. Demand peaked at 11,651 MW around 08:00 AEST yesterday, driving prices to $107.66/MWh, with intraday highs touching $109.96/MWh as demand pushed past 11,000 MW. Conversely, the overnight trough saw demand fall to 8,000-8,300 MW between 04:00-05:00 AEST, coinciding with prices collapsing to single digits ($10.27/MWh at 05:05) as wind generation (currently 1,672 MW) covered a larger share of a smaller load. This confirms NSW's price curve is highly convex above 10,000 MW — each incremental 500 MW of demand growth is adding $10-15/MWh once the region moves past the 9,500 MW mark.
Today's forecast trajectory points to a similar double-peak shape. AEMO's forecasts show prices holding near $85/MWh through the 21:30-22:00 AEST window before easing to $70/MWh by 23:00-23:30, then falling into negative/near-zero territory ($-0.05 to $13/MWh) through the 03:00-06:00 AEST overnight trough — consistent with the load-shifting windows flagged for 02:00-06:00 AEST offering $70-89/MWh savings versus peak. Morning demand ramp is forecast to push prices back to $80-85/MWh by 07:30-09:30 AEST, with a secondary afternoon peak near $85-89/MWh around 12:00-13:00 AEST, before easing to $54-65/MWh through the evening shoulder.
On the supply side, current generation mix shows black coal carrying 5,593 MW, wind at 1,672 MW, hydro at 930 MW, and batteries contributing 500 MW — with renewables at 35.6% and carbon intensity at 0.565 tCO2/MWh. Two active network notices are relevant to today's price formation: the Bayswater-Sydney West No.32 330kV line remains on unplanned outage (invoked constraint set N-BWSW_32 affecting NSW1-QLD1 and VIC1-NSW1 interconnector flows), while the Liddell-Tomago 82 330kV line returned to service at 14:10 AEST yesterday, easing a transfer constraint that had been in place since late July. The restored Liddell-Tomago capacity should support marginally better import/export flexibility into today's peak periods, but the Bayswater-Sydney West outage bears watching if demand runs above forecast during the 08:00-09:00 AEST or midday peaks, as it could tighten local supply margins and amplify price spikes beyond current forecasts.