We’ve already observed some ‘Elevated prices (in QLD and NSW) on Friday morning 9th October 2026’.

Later on in the morning (on Friday 9th October 2026) we noticed several coincident (or possibly related?) events – which we’ll summarise firstly with this snapshot from NEMwatch at 08:35 (NEM time) as follows:

We’ll briefly describe three things in turn…

A large drop in QLD demand

My ez2view alerts captured two significant shifts in reference data occurring for the 08:15 dispatch interval:

Firstly, let’s just note that the QLD ‘Market Demand’ fell by 512MW …

• from a Target of 5,489MW Target for 08:10
• to a Target of 4,976MW Target for 08:15
• which is a drop of 9.3%

… but, as seen in the NEMwatch snapshot above, the demand largely bounced back straight afterwards (notwithstanding the longer trend of decline into ‘the duck curve’ for the day).

A sizeable apparent trip (but then also recovery) at Millmerran unit 2

Even more curious was what appears to have happened at Millmerran unit 2.

We see in the snapshot above that (reported for the same dispatch interval, though perhaps more offset in time given the complexities of what happens within a dispatch interval, that:

• There’s an apparent trip of Millmerran unit 2
• Down 436MW (or close to full load)
• From 436MW to 0MW, based on SCADA snapshots that provide InitialMW readings captured prior to 08:11 (NEM time).

But, spiking even more curiosity, we see a quick turn-around, with this unit back online in the 5-minute period to 08:23 (NEM time):

Here’s the ‘Unit Dashboard’ widget in ez2view that shows a little more … but we’ll really need to wait for the ‘next day public’ data set tomorrow to explore in more detail:

No noticeable effect on system frequency

You’d need to squint into this trace of mainland frequency (measured at 0.1second cadence in Brisbane) to see any effect on frequency, from either of the above: