A severe binding constraint (C_N_QUORNP_009_L_H) affecting the Quorn area in the NEM has created an exceptionally high shadow price of $7.308 million per MWh, indicating critical network congestion or transmission limitation. This constraint was significantly more binding than other active constraints in the system, which had marginal values in the range of $4–$12 per MWh.
The constraint likely reflects a transmission bottleneck at the Quorn node during a period of high demand and/or uneven generator availability, forcing the market to restrict power flows through that location and pricing in the economic scarcity. The disparity between this constraint's shadow price and others suggests a localised, acute supply-demand imbalance rather than system-wide congestion, potentially driven by forced outages of major generators or transmission lines serving that region, or high local demand coinciding with limited interconnection capacity.
Causal analysis generated by gridIQ's synthesis model from live AEMO market data: dispatch prices, generation mix, interconnector flows and market notices in the interval surrounding the event.