Load Advisor: Friday 4 September 2026

NEM-wide conditions this morning favour immediate load shifting into overnight and early-morning hours, with VIC1, SA1 and TAS1 already sitting in negative pricing territory (-$5.09/MWh, -$4.81/MWh and -$5.38/MWh respectively at 06:25 AEST) while NSW1 and QLD1 remain positive at $56.48/MWh and $54.75/MWh. Predispatch forecasts confirm the region-wide low-price window will extend from now through roughly 15:00-16:00 AEST, driven by strong overnight wind generation across SA1 and VIC1 (28-31 km/h current wind speeds) persisting into the day.

The standout opportunity is SA1, where prices trough near -$43.09/MWh around 14:30 AEST and stay negative or near-zero from now until at least 16:30 AEST, delivering savings of $90-108/MWh versus typical peak pricing. VIC1 shows an equally deep window, with forecast prices sitting between -$20 and -$50/MWh from 10:00 AEST through to 15:00 AEST, bottoming near -$50.11/MWh at 14:30 AEST. TAS1 offers smaller but still solid savings ($37-56/MWh) across a similar overnight-to-midday band, while its prices lift into modest positive territory ($23-30/MWh) from 18:00 AEST as evening demand builds.

NSW1 and QLD1 present a tighter profile: both regions troughed overnight (NSW1 to -$18.51/MWh around 10:00-15:00 AEST, QLD1 to -$18.36/MWh around 15:00 AEST) but forecasts show a sharp reversal from 16:30 AEST, with QLD1 climbing to $70-80/MWh by 17:30-21:00 AEST and NSW1 following a similar path to $70-76/MWh across the same window. Flexible load in these two regions should be scheduled into the pre-16:00 AEST trough and cleared well before the evening ramp, which will be driven by the loss of solar generation into the 18:00-19:00 AEST peak.

For NEM-wide scheduling, the optimal action is to run flexible and shiftable load now through 15:00-16:00 AEST, concentrating the heaviest load in SA1 and VIC1 where negative pricing is deepest and most sustained. All regions should have flexible load curtailed or shifted out by 16:30-17:00 AEST ahead of the evening peak, which will be most pronounced in QLD1 and NSW1 reaching $70-80/MWh by 18:00-21:00 AEST. TAS1 and SA1 evening peaks are comparatively mild ($26-72/MWh), giving those regions more tolerance if load shifting slips into early evening, though the midday window remains the highest-value target across the board.