Regional Outlook — SA1: Sunday 6 September 2026
South Australia's spot price sits at $63.67/MWh as at 06:30 AEST settlement, easing back from a volatile overnight and morning session that saw prices spike to $105.46/MWh around 17:45 AEST (5:45pm local) during the evening demand ramp. Demand currently reads 1,344 MW, down from the afternoon peak of 1,585 MW recorded near 19:00 AEST. Over the past 24 hours, prices have swung from lows near $2.66/MWh in the early morning hours (previous night) to highs above $105/MWh during the morning and evening peaks, reflecting SA's typical high-volatility profile driven by wind variability and interconnector flows.
Generation mix at the latest interval (06:25 AEST) shows wind leading at 904.68 MW, comfortably the dominant source, supported by gas OCGT at 129.89 MW, gas CCGT at 123.15 MW, and battery output at 22.56 MW. Solar generation reads 0 MW, consistent with pre-dawn conditions — daytime solar potential today is forecast at just 5.1% average, with 38% cloud cover expected. Renewable penetration sits at 78.56%, though this has fluctuated sharply across the day, dropping as low as 39.7% around 07:55 AEST when wind output eased and gas plant ramped to cover the morning demand ramp, before recovering above 85% overnight as wind resumed.
Carbon intensity currently reads 0.1227 tCO2/MWh, tracking a wide range over the past 24 hours between 0.0401 tCO2/MWh (overnight, high wind) and a peak of 0.3503 tCO2/MWh at 07:55 AEST when gas generation carried a larger share of the mix. This inverse relationship between wind output and carbon intensity is a persistent feature of the SA grid and traders should watch wind forecasts closely for both price and emissions signals.
Predispatch forecasts point to a further easing overnight, with prices tipped to fall to near $0/MWh between 00:00 and 06:00 AEST tomorrow (7 September), including negative prints of -$4.15/MWh around 04:00 AEST, consistent with low overnight demand and strong wind. Prices then rebuild sharply through tomorrow morning, with forecasts climbing to $101.02/MWh by 08:00 AEST and peaking near $119.52/MWh around 09:30 AEST, before easing to the $70-80/MWh band through the afternoon. Load-shifting windows tonight and into tomorrow morning (00:30-01:30 AEST and 02:30-04:30 AEST) offer near-zero average prices with material savings versus peak, though the 05:30-06:30 AEST window carries a "high" risk flag given tightening demand.
On notices, AEMO cancelled its SA intervention event at 16:00 AEST yesterday (6 September) following a voltage-related foreseeable intervention flagged for 11:00 AEST, with an associated direction to AGL's Torrens Island B4 unit to synchronise and follow dispatch targets — this direction remains logged as active. A non-conformance was also declared for unit ADPBA1 (6 MW) between 03:25 and 07:10 AEST on 6 September. Traders should note the Keith-Kincraig 132kV line outage (unplanned, from 21:36 AEST 4 September) remains a live constraint on SA-VIC interconnector flows via the S-KHKN constraint set, and a Minimum System Load (MSL1) event is forecast for SA on 10 September, with minimum demand of just 1 MW expected around 14:00 AEST that day — relevant for battery and flexible load scheduling later this week.