Regional Outlook — QLD1: Monday 17 August 2026

Queensland's spot price sits at $67.12/MWh at 06:30 AEST, tracking near the upper end of an overnight range that swung from a negative-adjacent low of $0/MWh around 08:55 AEST yesterday to a morning peak above $89/MWh during the 18:45-19:15 UTC (04:45-05:15 AEST) demand ramp. Demand currently reads 6,768 MW and is climbing into the morning peak, consistent with the pattern seen yesterday when demand topped 7,850 MW around 18:00 AEST. Prices have been broadly range-bound between $50-85/MWh through the morning shoulder, a step up from the sub-$40/MWh troughs seen overnight when demand fell below 5,000 MW.

The generation mix is currently dominated by black coal at 5,207 MW, with wind contributing 1,318 MW and batteries delivering 570 MW of output. Gas OCGT adds 104 MW, hydro 57 MW, and solar is negligible at under 1 MW, reflecting the pre-dawn timing of this snapshot before solar ramps up through the morning. Renewable penetration sits at 26.8%, down from overnight highs above 50% when demand was low and wind output covered a larger share of a smaller total load — carbon intensity has correspondingly risen to 0.641 tCO2/MWh, up from an overnight low near 0.40 tCO2/MWh. Expect renewable share to lift again as solar ramps through the middle of the day, weather permitting — today's outlook shows only moderate solar potential (22.1%) and weak wind potential (2.8%) region-wide, so the carbon intensity curve is likely to stay elevated compared with stronger renewable days.

AEMO's predispatch forecast points to a firming trend into the evening: prices are forecast to hold near $65-76/MWh through midday, spike toward $81-84/MWh around 09:00-10:00 AEST on tightening supply, then ease back to the $54-56/MWh band through the afternoon and evening peak. Overnight forecasts show prices collapsing again into negative territory between 12:30-15:00 AEST tomorrow (02:30-05:00 UTC), with troughs as low as -$7/MWh, consistent with typical overnight oversupply conditions — this presents clear load-shifting opportunities, with AEMO's flagged low-price windows between 01:30-06:00 AEST tomorrow offering savings of $84-89/MWh versus peak pricing. On notices, the Palmwoods-South Pine 275kV line outage has been completed and returned to service at 17:10 AEST yesterday, resolving the associated transfer constraint, while the Woolooga-Teebar Creek 275kV line remains on forced outage with constraint sets Q-WOTB and Q-X_PWSP_CPWO_O still active, affecting NSW1-QLD1 interconnector flows. No non-conformance or intervention notices are currently active for QLD1.