Regional Outlook — TAS1: Friday 4 September 2026
Tasmania's spot price sits at $0.16/MWh at 06:35 AEST, sitting right at the bottom of a wide overnight range that has swung from -$6.85 to $230.89/MWh over the past 24 hours. The region printed sustained negative pricing through the 04:00-19:00 AEST window yesterday, with prices bottoming near -$6.85/MWh in the evening trough, before this morning's brief demand-driven spike toward $60/MWh eased back to near-zero. Demand currently tracks at 1,032 MW, mid-range for the day's 884-1,307 MW band.
Generation mix is running hydro-dominant: hydro contributes 379 MW, wind adds 163 MW, and gas OCGT sits at 125 MW in the latest interval. That mix puts renewable penetration at 81.2%, consistent with Tasmania's typical profile, though it's down from the 100% renewable stretches recorded overnight when gas wasn't dispatched at all. Carbon intensity reads 0.1222 tCO2/MWh, up from a flat 0 tCO2/MWh across most of the 21:00-08:00 AEST period — the gas OCGT contribution through the day is the primary driver of that lift.
Predispatch forecasts point to continued price weakness overnight into Saturday, with forecast RRP troughing at -$27.50/MWh around 12:30 AEST and holding negative or near-zero through to 08:00 AEST tomorrow, before a modest recovery to the $23-30/MWh range through the morning and midday period. Weather supports this trajectory: wind potential is negligible today (3%) and solar potential is effectively zero given 100% cloud cover, keeping the region reliant on hydro dispatch flexibility to manage the low-price overnight window.
Two active TAS1 network notices are relevant for grid engineers: an inter-regional transfer limit variation from an unplanned outage of the Tungatina 110 kV substation (constraint T-PMWA, affecting the Tasmania-Victoria interconnector), and a series of lightning-related reclassifications of non-credible contingency events on the Farrell-Reece 220 kV lines and Gordon-Chapel St 220 kV lines, all since cancelled as lightning activity cleared. No active market interventions or directions are recorded for TAS1 currently. Traders should note the region's price stability score of 15.1 reflects this volatility, with grid stress reading 60.8 amid the wide demand swings.