Current price: $116.74/MWh · Updated
VIC1 · NEM, 5-min dispatch intervals
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Victoria has historically been Australia's brown coal heartland, with the Latrobe Valley generators, Yallourn and Loy Yang A and B, providing low-cost baseload power for decades. However, the progressive retirement of these assets is reshaping Victoria's wholesale electricity market and driving increased price volatility.
The state has emerged as a major hub for wind generation, particularly across western Victoria where large-scale wind farms contribute a growing share of the generation mix. Victoria is one of the most interconnected NEM regions, with links to New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania via the Basslink HVDC undersea cable.
Victorian wholesale electricity prices are heavily influenced by the interplay between ageing thermal generation, variable wind output, and interconnector flows. As coal closures accelerate, the state's reliance on renewables and imports from neighbouring regions is expected to increase significantly.
For background on how the wholesale market sets these prices, see our wholesale electricity guide or the VIC price history. When prices spike, the negative-price explainer covers the renewables-driven downside.
The Victorian wholesale electricity spot price is set by AEMO every 5 minutes as part of the National Electricity Market (NEM) dispatch process. The live price and 24-hour chart are shown above.
Victorian prices typically rise when brown coal generation from the Latrobe Valley (Yallourn, Loy Yang A and B) is reduced and wind output is low, or when Basslink and Heywood interconnector flows are constrained.
The NEM sets a new spot price for Victoria every 5 minutes, giving 288 dispatch intervals per day. Because wind output can swing sharply between intervals, Victorian prices often move faster than the underlying demand trend alone would suggest.
AEMO's dispatch engine matches generator bids to forecast demand every 5 minutes. The price is set by the most expensive generator needed to meet demand in that interval, subject to network constraints. In Victoria, brown coal plant availability is the biggest single driver of that marginal price.