Regional Outlook — QLD1: Saturday 5 September 2026
Queensland spot price sits at $72.50/MWh at 06:30 AEST, tracking near the top of a band that has ranged from -$10.58/MWh overnight to $84.73/MWh at the 20:00 peak yesterday evening. Demand currently reads 5,265 MW, down from an evening peak above 6,900 MW. Overnight settlement periods between 21:00 and 05:30 AEST printed persistently negative prices (-$5 to -$11/MWh) as demand fell below 3,300 MW at the trough, consistent with low-load conditions rather than any supply shortfall.
Generation mix at the current interval is dominated by black coal at 4,869 MW, with wind contributing 580 MW, gas OCGT at 98 MW, battery output at 60 MW, and solar at just 31 MW given the early morning timing. Renewable penetration sits at 11.89%, down sharply from the 40-47% range seen overnight when wind carried a much larger share of load. Carbon intensity has correspondingly risen to 0.7713 tCO2/MWh, near the upper end of today's range — intensity troughed around 0.46-0.53 tCO2/MWh overnight during the higher-wind, lower-demand window and has climbed steadily since sunrise as coal's share reasserts itself and wind output eases.
Predispatch forecasts point to a firming price trajectory through the morning and into midday: $79.75/MWh by 07:30 AEST, breaking above $90/MWh from 08:00, and peaking near $101.10/MWh at 11:00 AEST before easing back through the afternoon to the $63-72/MWh band by mid-afternoon and evening. This aligns with the demand ramp typical of a Sunday morning load build. Weather today shows 31.8°C maximum temperature with only 33.7% average solar potential and negligible wind potential (1.2%), suggesting renewable output will stay constrained relative to recent days, keeping coal generation elevated and carbon intensity firm through the midday peak.
No active market notices directly affect QLD1 today. The overnight notice queue is dominated by SA voltage-related intervention activity (AGL Torrens Island direction, now cancelled from 20:00 AEST 5 September) and a series of VIC1/TAS1/NSW1 lightning-related contingency reclassifications, none of which carry QLD-specific constraints. Traders should note the NSW1 interconnector transfer limit variation from the Sydney West-Vineyard 330kV outage, which touches the N-Q-MNSP1 constraint set and could marginally affect NSW-QLD flows, though it has not shown material impact on QLD pricing to date.