Commodity Demand — QLD1: Monday 7 September 2026

Queensland spot price sits at $84.73/MWh as at 06:30 AEST, with demand at 6,386 MW and climbing through the evening ramp. This follows a textbook demand-driven price curve over the past 24 hours: overnight demand troughed near 4,050-4,200 MW between 10:00pm and 3:00am, coinciding with negative and near-zero prices (as low as -$3.00/MWh) as battery output and low-cost baseload covered the trough. Prices only turned positive once demand climbed back through 5,400 MW around 5:40am, then spiked sharply — hitting $132.99/MWh at 08:00am as demand pushed past 7,590 MW into the morning peak.

The price-demand relationship today is steep and non-linear. Between 5,700 MW and 6,400 MW overnight/evening, prices track in the $60-90/MWh band with modest sensitivity. But once demand crosses roughly 6,800-7,000 MW, prices jump into triple digits, peaking at $132.99/MWh when demand hit its daily high of 7,679 MW just after 8:30am. This morning peak was the sharpest price response of the day — a roughly 1,200 MW rise in demand (from 6,400 MW to 7,600 MW) drove prices up nearly 60%. By early afternoon, demand eased back to the 6,000-6,300 MW range and prices settled into the $85-105/MWh band, before a modest evening uptick is now underway as demand climbs back above 6,300 MW.

AEMO's forecast trajectory points to a second, more moderate demand-driven price lift overnight into tomorrow's morning peak. Forecast prices ease to $22.85/MWh by 8:30am tomorrow (AEST) as demand falls, then trough near $0-2/MWh through the 10:00am-5:00am overnight window — consistent with the low-demand, high-battery-discharge pattern seen last night. The forecast then shows prices climbing again from 5:30am, reaching $91-94/MWh by 8:00-9:00am tomorrow as morning demand ramps, mirroring today's pattern but slightly softer in peak magnitude. No load-shedding or reserve notices are currently active for Queensland; the only relevant AEMO notice was a cancelled LOR1 forecast for VIC, unrelated to QLD demand-supply balance.

Generation mix at the current interval shows black coal covering 5,362 MW of the 6,386 MW load (84%), with wind contributing 477 MW and batteries 639 MW — batteries are actively discharging to help meet the evening ramp. Renewable penetration sits at 18.28%, well below the midday trough near 47-48% recorded overnight, reflecting the loss of solar generation post-sunset. Grid stress score reads 75.1, the highest of the tracked metrics, consistent with the current demand ramp pushing thermal plant hard into the evening peak.