How low will it go … an updated look at forecast for ‘Market Demand’ in VIC and SA on Thursday 1st January 2026

It was a little over 38 hours ago that that we published ‘Forecast for coincident MSL2 on Thursday 1st January 2026 (in Victoria and South Australia)’.

Whilst the AEMO does its own thing with respect to Market Notices about forecast levels for Minimum System Load for Victoria in South Australia for tomorrow (Thursday 1st January 2026), I’ve taken the same copy of ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view, with the same colour range settings as used in the prior article to focus on the low points, and present this snapshot from 09:55 NEM time on Wednesday 31st December 2025 :

Briefly:

1)  Remember you can click on the image to open a larger view in a different browser tab;

2)  The ‘Grid’ view allows one to ‘look up a vertical’ in order to see ‘that other dimension of time’.

3)  For Victoria (at the top) we see that:

(a)  the spread of dark blue in Victoria has thinned somewhat, but is still quite broad.

(b)  the latest forecasts are for low points in ‘Market Demand’ down below 1,200MW … which would mean new lowest-ever points.

4)  For South Australia (in the middle) we see that in relative terms the forecast low points are not as wide, with the lowest point forecast to be in the half-hour to 13:30 NEM time.

5)  On a NEM-wide basis (at the bottom) we see that the top couple of rows are seeing the most recent forecasts introduce some demand forecasts slightly below the 10,500MW mark.

Coincidentally, yesterday we saw Catherine McAloon write ‘Household battery uptake booms on back of ‘game-changer’ rebate’ on the ABC, and this reporting reminds us of some staggering figures in terms of the recent additions of residential battery systems:

1)   In terms of the numbers:

(a)  The author writes:

‘Her household is one of an estimated 155,000 that rushed to take advantage of the federal government’s battery subsidy scheme, introduced on July 1, 2025, within its first six months.’

(b)  and quotes Tristan Edis (who sometimes writes here) as noting:

‘“For comparison, the daily number of systems that were being installed over 2024 was around 200 systems, and over the last few weeks we’ve been doing about 1,300,” Mr Edis said in December.’

… and …

‘”Another way to look at it is, what was the biggest battery in the world a few years ago, which was the Hornsdale South Australian Tesla big battery … households right now are installing the equivalent of a Hornsdale big battery every three and a half days.’

2)   Which prompts two related questions:

(a)  What effects might we see tomorrow of all of these Government-primed capital outlays on days like tomorrow?

(b)  To what extent have these already been factored into the AEMO’s short-term forecasting models … or will we see some effects ‘out of the blue’?

PS1 new Market Notices for forecasts of MSL2

The article above was published at 10:08 (NEM time), and has been updated now to reference the following two Market Notices (speaking to updated forecasts for MSL2 in both regions) that were both published within the following hour:

To (hopefully) help clear up some confusion with some readers, please note that there is a different cadence to each of the following:

Activity #1)  On a very frequent/regular basis the AEMO updates its forecasts, and assessment of such indicators as forecast MSL* and forecast LOR* and the like.

For instance, this might be every half-hour or every hour (depending how far forward into the future they are looking).

Activity #2)  That should not be confused with the less regular cadence at which AEMO decides to trigger a Market Notice pertaining to the above.

In other words, just because there’s not a Market Notice (or not a recent Market Notice) does not mean that there’s not a forecast for MSL* or LOR* etc…

1)   Whilst the forecast LOR conditions are published into the AEMO’s EMMS systems (so visible to participants on that regular basis, and we can provide direct visibility via the ‘Forecast Convergence’ widget in ez2view) …

2)  Alas, the whole MSL regime is so much newer in origin that the wheels have not turned enough inside of the AEMO machinery for the MSL data to be published directly into the EMMS at this point.

That’s something wholesale participants have been asking for through 2025 …