Commodity Demand — TAS1: Monday 24 August 2026
Tasmania spot price sits at $90.60/MWh as at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 1,175 MW and climbing through the morning ramp. This follows a textbook overnight pattern: demand troughed near 978 MW around 03:40 AEST when prices bottomed at $11-26/MWh, then began a steady rise from 04:00 as the morning load-up took hold. The price-demand relationship has been tight all night — every 50-100 MW step up in demand has pushed RRP up by $20-40/MWh, reflecting Tasmania's thin margin above baseload hydro output.
The overnight and early morning peak was sharp: demand hit 1,408 MW at 07:55 AEST, driving RRP to $116.74/MWh, with intermittent spikes to $124-126/MWh as 5-minute dispatch intervals cleared tight. Prices eased back to the $60-100/MWh band through the 09:00-15:00 AEST period as demand tapered to a midday low near 1,027 MW at 12:05 AEST, before climbing again into the evening peak — demand back above 1,150 MW by 20:20 AEST with prices holding in the high $80s to $120s/MWh range on brief spikes.
AEMO's forecast points to a second, sharper price escalation ahead: forecast RRP climbs from $87-100/MWh through the 21:00-23:00 AEST window tonight, and then a more significant morning peak tomorrow with forecast prices reaching $103-107/MWh between 08:00-09:30 AEST as demand rebuilds. This mirrors today's pattern and confirms Tasmania's price sensitivity is driven almost entirely by demand-side ramping against a hydro-dominated supply stack (1,370 MW hydro, 124 MW gas OCGT, 13 MW wind currently), rather than fuel cost pass-through. Cold morning conditions (8.8°C, heating demand index 9.2) are reinforcing the load profile, and with minimal wind and solar contribution overnight, gas OCGT is providing the marginal supply during ramp periods — consistent with the price spikes coinciding with generation mix shifts. No load-shedding or demand-side notices are currently active for TAS1; the only regional network item is the now-cancelled lightning-related contingency reclassification on the Tungatinah-Waddamana lines, which is not currently constraining supply.