Regional Outlook — NSW1: Monday 14 September 2026
**New South Wales Regional Outlook — 15 September 2026, 6:30am AEST**
The NSW spot price sits at $82.84/MWh as of the 6:30am interval, tracking near the top of an overnight range that swung from a peak of $90/MWh at 6:15am down to negative pricing (-$8.66/MWh) between 3:10pm and 4:00am AEST as rooftop and grid-scale solar plus wind pushed supply well above demand. Demand currently sits at 7,396 MW and is climbing through the morning ramp, consistent with the pattern seen yesterday where load rose from an overnight trough near 5,090 MW to a daytime peak above 8,800 MW. Prices have been volatile but centred around $60-90/MWh for most of the past 24 hours, with brief excursions to zero or negative during the solar-heavy midday and early-afternoon window.
Generation mix at the current interval is dominated by black coal at 5,121 MW, supplying the bulk of dispatchable load. Wind is contributing 453 MW, hydro 290 MW, battery output 149 MW, solar 147 MW (rising quickly as the morning progresses), and gas OCGT a modest 43 MW, with gas CCGT offline. Renewable penetration sits at 16.75% for this interval, well down from the overnight peak of 63-65% recorded between midnight and 2:00am AEST when wind and hydro carried a much larger share of supply. Carbon intensity has risen in step, now at 0.731 tCO2/MWh, up from a low of 0.307 tCO2/MWh overnight — this diurnal swing between low-carbon overnight conditions and coal-heavy daytime supply is a consistent pattern in NSW.
Predispatch forecasts point to a firming price trajectory through the day: $52.82/MWh at 7:00am easing to negative territory is not expected again until tonight, with prices climbing steadily through the morning to $77-84/MWh by mid-morning, then pushing higher into the afternoon peak with a forecast high of $102.97/MWh at 1:00pm AEST. Prices are expected to ease slightly into the evening, settling around $76-86/MWh through to 6:00pm. Overnight tonight, forecasts show a return to negative pricing from 10:00pm through to around 6:30am tomorrow, bottoming near -$13/MWh in the pre-dawn hours — a window flagged by our load-shifting model as the cheapest and lowest-carbon period of the next 24 hours, offering up to $116/MWh in savings versus today's peak for flexible load.
On market notices, the standing item most relevant to NSW is the completed inter-regional transfer limit variation on the Eraring-Newcastle 90 330kV line, which returned to service yesterday afternoon after a planned outage — the associated constraint set N-ERNC_90 has been revoked, removing that transfer restriction. The bulk of active AEMO interventions and directions currently relate to voltage control issues in South Australia (ongoing directions to AGL's Torrens Island units) and do not directly affect NSW dispatch. No non-conformance or NSW-specific direction notices are currently active. Weather today is mild with a forecast top of 21.4°C and moderate solar potential (33.8% average), supporting a typical spring generation profile with strong rooftop solar contribution expected through midday.