Queensland’s electricity market has seen significant volatility in early 2025, with demand records broken, price spikes reaching extreme levels, and increasing pressure on the grid from both legacy infrastructure and the variability of renewables. For those navigating this shifting landscape, it’s become clear: the future of grid stability depends on smarter, more flexible energy systems — and PowerSync Technologies is helping unlock this future.
Market Conditions: Peak Demand, Tight Supply
On 22 January 2025, Queensland hit a new all-time high for operational electricity demand: 11,144 MW, driven by scorching temperatures and widespread air conditioning use. This coincided with reduced availability of dispatchable generation, setting the stage for market volatility across the NEM.
In the weeks that followed, price spikes became the norm. Queensland recorded 22 market events above $10,000/MWh in January alone, with the highest reaching $17,304/MWh. By mid-March, AEMO was issuing Lack of Reserve (LOR) notices, and the market again faced pressure from supply-demand imbalances.
What’s Driving the Volatility?
This market behaviour is not isolated — it reflects systemic issues in the NEM:
- Outages at aging coal generators, including ongoing issues at plants like Callide, continue to expose reliability risks.
- Intermittency of renewables, particularly during low solar or wind output periods, challenges grid security in the absence of flexible dispatchable backup.
- Gas supply constraints, highlighted in AEMO’s 2025 Gas Statement of Opportunities, are raising concerns over long-term firming capacity.
Amid these conditions, the market is urgently seeking new forms of controllable capacity — and that’s where demand-side participation steps in.
Demand-Side Response: A Smarter, Faster Path to Grid Stability
Traditionally, the grid has relied on large-scale supply-side assets to balance demand. But in a high-renewables, high-volatility future, distributed flexibility will be critical.
PowerSync Technologies enables commercial and industrial customers to unlock the value of their energy assets — batteries, flexible loads, and generation — by orchestrating their participation in wholesale energy markets, FCAS, and reliability reserve programs. This is not just about reacting to volatility; it’s about monetising it.
Our platform:
- Responds in real time to market signals (price, demand forecasts, FCAS requirements)
- Optimises energy usage and dispatch for commercial and industrial customers
- Bids compliantly into the market on behalf of aggregated flexible resources
- Tracks performance and provides auditable reporting to support revenue assurance
This approach doesn’t just help the system — it helps customers get paid for supporting it.
Technology That Pays for Flexibility
The future of the energy market will reward those who can move fast, respond flexibly, and deliver capacity when and where it’s needed. PowerSync’s technology makes this possible.
Rather than viewing volatility as a risk, our customers turn it into an opportunity. During price spikes, orchestrated load curtailment or battery discharge can generate thousands in value — with no interruption to operations when designed properly.
Meanwhile, by participating in capacity reserve and frequency control services, sites can earn steady income while strengthening the grid.
Looking Ahead: Aggregation is the New Baseload
The volatility in Queensland isn’t going away — if anything, it’s a preview of what’s to come across the broader NEM as legacy generation exits and renewables accelerate.
The answer isn’t to slow the transition. It’s to digitise, orchestrate, and aggregate. Demand-side technology like PowerSync’s turns latent energy assets into market participants, bridging the reliability gap and accelerating decarbonisation.
In a world of peaks and surges, the most valuable power isn’t just on the supply side — it’s on your side.