Regional Outlook — TAS1: Friday 21 August 2026
Tasmania's spot price sits at $41.37/MWh as at 20:25 AEST, tracking above the overnight trough but well within the day's wide range of $3.52 to $90.42/MWh. Prices have been volatile over the past 24 hours, spiking into the $60-72/MWh band during the morning peak (07:00-08:30) before collapsing to single digits during the low-demand window around 15:50-16:00 when demand dropped to 840 MW. Current demand of 1021 MW sits mid-range for the day, which spanned roughly 840 MW to 1300 MW.
Generation is entirely renewable: wind is contributing 523 MW and hydro 395 MW, with zero output from the gas OCGT unit. This puts renewable penetration at 100% for this interval, consistent with the past 24 hours where carbon intensity has printed at 0 tCO2/MWh for nearly every period, aside from a brief uptick to 0.0158 tCO2/MWh at 03:00 AEST when renewable share dipped to 97.56%. Tasmania's carbon intensity score of 62 and renewable penetration reading of 44.1 in the composite scoring reflect a longer rolling window rather than the current snapshot.
Predispatch forecasts point to a sharp overnight price collapse, with forecast RRP falling to $2.75/MWh by 03:00 AEST and staying in single digits through to 04:30 AEST, driven by low demand and abundant wind. Prices then recover through the morning, reaching $45.18/MWh by 07:00 AEST and holding in the $45/MWh band through midday and early afternoon before a modest step-up to $43-45/MWh from 16:00 AEST into the evening. Load-shifting windows between 23:00 AEST tonight and 05:00 AEST tomorrow offer savings of $36-41/MWh versus peak, with the 03:00-04:00 AEST window flagged as the cheapest at an average $4.18/MWh, though carrying medium risk given wind-dependency.
On notices, AEMO has reclassified a non-credible contingency event as credible for the Tungatinah-Lake Echo-Waddamana 1 and Tungatinah-Waddamana 2 110kV lines from 05:23 AEST today due to lightning activity, effective until further notice. A related reclassification on the Farrell-Reece 220kV lines was issued yesterday evening and remains active after an earlier cancellation was reversed. Traders should note the Basslink interconnector reached a technical limitation on 18 August, invoking constraint I-VT_000, which may continue to affect Tasmania-Victoria transfer capacity and contribute to intraday price volatility given today's cloud cover (98%) limiting solar and moderate wind conditions (16.9 km/h).