Commodity Demand — SA1: Sunday 23 August 2026
South Australia's spot price sits at $49.43/MWh at 06:30 AEST with demand at 1,370 MW, down from the overnight evening peak of 1,605 MW recorded around 18:55-19:00 AEST yesterday evening (interval ending), which pushed prices to a session high near $100/MWh. Demand has been oscillating between roughly 1,270 MW and 1,410 MW through the most recent trading window, and price is tracking that band tightly — a 130 MW swing has produced roughly $25-30/MWh of price movement, consistent with SA's typically steep supply curve once wind output eases.
Overnight, demand collapsed to a low of just 259 MW around 12:10 (settlement time UTC, ~21:40-22:10 AEST) as minimum demand troughed, and prices fell deeply negative, bottoming near -$7.86/MWh. This is the classic SA pattern: wind generation currently supplies 1,358 MW against total demand of roughly 1,411 MW (generation mix at 19:55 UTC), meaning renewables are covering effectively the entire load, with gas CCGT contributing just 42.7 MW and OCGT near zero. Renewable penetration sits at 96.97% and carbon intensity is very low at 0.0149 tCO2/MWh — reflecting sustained strong wind output overnight and this morning.
The forecast trajectory points to a firming price profile through the day: AEMO's dispatch forecasts show prices climbing from the current level toward $92-105/MWh across the 07:30-10:30 AEST window as demand ramps into the morning peak, before easing back to $30-60/MWh range by early afternoon and falling further to single digits overnight. This mirrors yesterday's pattern almost exactly — a pre-dawn trough below $0/MWh, a sharp morning ramp as demand climbed from ~300 MW to over 1,600 MW between 05:30 and 09:00 AEST, and moderating prices into the evening as wind contribution and cooler, low-solar conditions (cloud cover at 100%, solar potential at 0) keep the generation mix wind-dominated rather than solar-supported today.
Demand-side risk factors are limited today: AEMO's voltage-related interventions in SA (directions to AGL's Torrens Island and Barker Inlet units) were active through Saturday into Sunday but have since been cancelled, suggesting synchronous generation adequacy has stabilised. With minimal solar contribution expected (cloud cover near 100%, max temp only 14.5°C), today's price outlook remains tightly coupled to wind output and the demand ramp — expect the sharpest price gains to coincide with the 07:00-10:30 AEST demand build, and the identified low-price windows (00:00-05:00 AEST) offer the best load-shifting opportunities, consistent with the flagged low-risk load windows priced near zero to $11/MWh.