Regional Outlook — VIC1: Thursday 3 September 2026
Victoria's spot price sits at $252.65/MWh as of 06:30 AEST, capping a sharp evening ramp that took prices from around $95-110/MWh mid-afternoon to over $200/MWh in the final interval of the trading window. This follows a volatile 24 hours: overnight prices sat near zero and dipped negative (-$12.43/MWh at one point) as demand fell to a low of 3858 MW around 04:45-04:55 AEST, before climbing through the morning peak to a sustained $90-160/MWh band across the day as demand built to 6997 MW. Current demand of 6101 MW is up from the overnight trough but below yesterday's afternoon peak.
Generation mix at the most recent interval shows brown coal dominating supply at 3530.66 MW, followed by wind at 1138.01 MW, gas OCGT at 103.84 MW, hydro at 39.12 MW, with negligible battery and solar output (0.13 MW and 0.05 MW respectively, consistent with the evening timeslot). Renewable penetration sits at 24.47%, a marked decline from the 61.65% recorded around midnight — this reflects the diurnal wind and solar pattern rather than any structural shift, with wind generation providing the bulk of the renewable contribution as rooftop and grid solar taper off after sunset. Carbon intensity has climbed in step, now at 0.9092 tCO2/MWh, up from a low of 0.4335 tCO2/MWh in the early hours — tracking the inverse relationship between renewable share and coal-heavy generation as solar drops out.
Predispatch forecasts point to continued volatility overnight and into Friday. The 21:00 AEST interval is forecast at $225.89/MWh, easing to $110.27/MWh by 21:30, before a secondary spike to $166.09/MWh at 22:00. Prices then fall away sharply, turning negative from 01:00 AEST (-$5.09/MWh) and staying negative through to around 06:00 AEST, with troughs near -$8/MWh between 04:00 and 04:30. Friday afternoon shows a modest firming to $35-38/MWh around 11:00-12:00 before dropping to zero or negative again from 13:00 through to 18:00 AEST — consistent with the load-shifting windows identified for the 03:00-06:00 and 15:00-17:00 AEST periods, each offering roughly $232/MWh in savings versus current peak pricing for flexible load.
On notices, Victoria has an active settlements residue constraint history on the VIC-SA interconnector (NRM_VIC1_SA1), which started and stopped multiple times through 3 September as negative residues built up and were managed — this reflects ongoing interconnector flow dynamics rather than a security issue. AEMO also invoked an automated constraint set (CA_SYDS_59A889E5) on the V-S-MNSP1 and V-SA interconnector equations from 1 September, still in force, to maintain secure operating conditions in Victoria. Separately, planned AEMO market network maintenance is scheduled for today, 4 September, from 10:00 to 17:00 AEST, which may briefly affect VPN connectivity for participants using the QLD datacentre termination point — no impact expected on dispatch or settlement systems.