​NEM utility-scale wind merchant revenues rose 41% in October 2026 to $162k/MW/year.

Wind generation fell 10%, while the average RRP rose 61% to $74/MWh. With less wind in the mix, coal generators offered electricity at higher prices and still cleared. This raised capture prices enough to offset the generation dip.

Coal's impact on RRP lifted New South Wales and Queensland the most, where it makes up a larger share of the generation mix. South Australia saw the least benefit, but its revenues still increased 7% despite a 25% fall in wind output.

For related NEM benchmarks, read our October solar and battery revenue reports. Lower wind output lifted midday prices, boosting solar earnings but raising battery charging costs.

This report covers merchant revenues to reflect the underlying merchant wind market.

Executive summary

• Wind revenues rose 41% to $162k/MW/year, as higher prices outweighed lower output. The wind capture price rose 57% to $55/MWh while wind generation fell 10%.
• Queensland led at $300k/MW/year. Its wind ran at the highest mainland capacity factor and aligned most closely with the intraday price profile.
• Wind's price shape in Victoria kept revenues lowest at $87k/MW/year. Wind supplied 28% of Victorian demand, pushing prices down when generation was high.
• The 12 October price event split New South Wales wind farms. Unconstrained Southern Tablelands farms earned 60% more over the month than their constrained neighbours.

High capture rates put Queensland ahead, while constraints held back New South Wales

Queensland recorded the highest wind revenue in the NEM at $300k/MW/year. It had the highest capture rate (92.4%) and the highest capacity factor among mainland NEM states (35%).

Queensland's wind generation also aligned more closely with the intraday price shape than in any other state. Wind supplies just 13% of Queensland demand, which limits price cannibalisation, compared with southern states where wind penetration is higher.

New South Wales had the highest average RRP, at $128/MWh. Yet wind revenue reached $270k/MW/year, below Queensland. On 12 October, heat, cloud and transmission constraints sent the price to $23,107/MWh. However, the same transmission constraints prevented several wind farms from generating during the price spike. This accounted for most of the state's curtailment costs.

Our wind capture rate methodology explains each step of the capture rate breakdown.

Prices doubled in New South Wales and rose 65% in Queensland

In New South Wales, the average RRP doubled. Wind generation fell 9%, and coal availability fell 4%, so coal generators offered electricity at higher prices. Gas generation also rose almost fivefold, reaching 81 GWh. This meant wind earned more despite the drop in generation. The 12 October price spike made up $17/MWh of the capture price.

In Queensland, demand also increased while wind generated less. Coal generation increased 17% to fill the gap, and prices were 15% higher when dispatched. This made it the state with the largest revenue increase, at 59%.

AEMO has not yet published its October price-setter data at the time of writing, so we estimated October's coal-set price. The estimate takes the intervals where the regional price matched a coal unit's offer, adjusted for losses to the regional reference node.

Capture prices rose 57% to $55/MWh

Wind capture prices ranged from $101/MWh in New South Wales to $29/MWh in Victoria. They largely follow how much of each state's demand wind supplies: just 11% in New South Wales and 13% in Queensland, against 28% in Victoria.

South Australia captured $42/MWh, even though wind met 64% of demand. Unlike Victoria, it retained more of its price during windy periods. Victorian brown coal generators often bid at negative prices because shutting down and restarting is costly. This pushes prices lower when wind output is high, forcing wind farms to either curtail or generate at negative prices. South Australia does not face the same effect.

Network constraints had the greatest impact on wind farms in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales and central and northern Queensland. The state sections below break down the revenue impact further.

North-west Victoria lost the largest share of available wind output to curtailment. However, most of this occurred during negative-price periods, so the financial impact was small.

Wind revenues rose 29% in October 2026

Wind revenue reached $162k/MW/year in October, up 29% from $126k/MW/year in October 2025. This was despite 14% less generation per MW. Higher market prices and higher wind capture rates drove the wind capture price up 52% to $55/MWh.

Wind's capture rate increased 10 percentage points year-on-year to 75%. This largely reflected less exposure to negative prices. In October 2025, 45% of available wind generation coincided with negative prices. In October 2026, this fell to 24%.

Lower wind generation reduced the amount of supply competing for demand. At the same time, the battery fleet charging doubled, helping to reduce negative-price periods.

State-by-state breakdown

A line outage cost Southern Tablelands wind farms up to $75/MWh

• The 12 October event held Collector, Crookwell, Gullen Range and Rye Park at zero while the price ran up to $23,107/MWh.
• Taralga and Woodlawn are in the same region but were unconstrained and earned around $12,500/MW that day, 40% of their month's revenue.
• White Rock was the lowest-earning unconstrained farm, with the worst MLF (0.83), which cost it $19.36/MWh.

Queensland's northern farms lost the most to a new constraint

• Clarke Creek led the state at $393k/MW/year, benefiting from a 48% capacity factor, against 34% for the rest of the state.
• Mount Emerald was the state's lowest earner at $179k/MW/year, after constraints took 20% of its available generation.
• Wambo 1 was offline for most of October while Wambo 2 continued commissioning. Both are excluded from the analysis.

Victoria holds the most wind and earned the least

• Victoria holds 43% of the NEM's wind capacity, mostly in one cluster across the western district and around Ballarat and Geelong. Those farms generate at the same time and lost $20 to $27/MWh due to their price shape (time-of-day dispatch and cannibalisation).
• Victorian wind farms also have consistent negative price dispatch. Every wind asset in our analysis holds a recorded PPA or government contract.
• Golden Plains is now the NEM's largest operating wind farm, at 1.29 GW across five units. West 2 will be included in November revenues if it continues to dispatch at full capacity.

South Australian wind paid the most in the NEM to dispatch below zero

• Negative-price dispatch cost South Australian wind $5.16/MWh, the most in the NEM.
• Lincoln Gap 2 led at $172k/MW/year, curtailing during negative prices.
• Hornsdale's three stages generated through negative prices, which cut their merchant capture rates by 29 percentage points. All three hold ACT Government feed-in tariffs.

What to watch next

October showed how higher captured prices can outweigh lower output. Constraint exposure also decides which farms keep that uplift. This exposure carries into summer.

Modo Energy's El Niño analysis found that stable, high-pressure conditions could bring summer wind droughts to Victoria and South Australia, lifting evening prices. Higher prices only help farms that generate during those intervals, so a long wind drought can still cut revenue.

Modo Energy covers wind assets in our Global Asset Library. You can also create custom revenue forecasts for your wind asset. Check out the benchmarks and forward look on the Modo Terminal.