Commodity Demand — QLD1: Monday 17 August 2026

Queensland demand sits at 6,768 MW as at 20:30 AEST, up sharply from the 6,242 MW low around 13:00 and tracking the evening ramp, with spot price at $67.12/MWh. The data shows tight demand-price coupling today: overnight demand troughed near 4,600-4,900 MW between 00:30 and 03:00 AEST, with prices collapsing to near-zero and briefly negative (as low as $0.00/MWh), before the morning ramp from 5,500 MW at 06:00 to a peak of 7,855 MW at 08:00 pushed prices up to $85-89/MWh. That's roughly a 40% demand swing driving prices from near $0 to high $80s, confirming demand is the dominant price driver in this window rather than fuel-mix constraints.

The morning peak between 07:30 and 09:00 AEST was the highest-price window of the day, with demand above 7,700 MW sustaining prices in the $76-89/MWh range for close to 90 minutes. Demand eased through the middle of the day to a 6,000-6,200 MW band by early afternoon, with prices correspondingly softer at $54-63/MWh. The current evening ramp (18:00-20:30 AEST) has lifted demand from 5,540 MW to 6,768 MW, a 1,200 MW build in under three hours, pushing prices from $40-55/MWh up to the high $60s.

AEMO's forecast trajectory points to a further evening peak into the 21:00-22:00 AEST window before demand falls away overnight: forecast RRP sits at $64.93/MWh for 21:00, dips to $56.41/MWh at 21:30, then a brief bounce to $61.96/MWh at 22:00 before falling to $19.86/MWh by 23:00 and near-zero through the overnight trough. Negative prices are forecast between 02:30 and 05:00 AEST tomorrow (down to -$7.01/MWh at 04:30), consistent with tonight's pattern of low demand outrunning minimum generation. Tomorrow's day-ahead forecast shows a stronger morning peak building from $65.24/MWh at 06:30 to $83.69/MWh by 10:00 AEST, broadly in line with today's shape. No demand-side constraints or non-conformance notices are currently affecting QLD generation availability; the only active QLD-specific network item is a resolved Palmwoods-South Pine 275kV outage restored at 17:10 AEST, removing an associated interconnector constraint set for the rest of the evening.