Interconnector Watch
SA is the price outlier at $138/MWh, and both interconnectors serving it are running at or near their export limits. Heywood (V-SA) is carrying 491 MW northbound into SA and is binding at its 491 MW export cap, fully saturating the link. Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) is also binding, exporting 117 MW into SA at its 117 MW export ceiling. Combined, Victoria is pushing roughly 608 MW into SA — yet the constraints on both links are preventing additional supply from crossing, which explains the $44.62/MWh premium SA carries over Victoria ($93.38/MWh). Without binding relief, that spread persists as long as SA demand holds above local generation capacity.
On the eastern backbone, VIC-NSW is flowing 559 MW northbound from Victoria into NSW, using 67% of its 832 MW export limit — not binding, with headroom remaining. QNI is carrying 639 MW southbound from Queensland into NSW, at 57% of its 1,117 MW import capacity, also non-binding. The combined effect is NSW sitting mid-range at $104.65/MWh, drawing from both Victoria below and Queensland above. The QLD-NSW spread is narrow at roughly $9/MWh, consistent with the open, high-utilisation QNI flow compressing the differential.
Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) is dead flat at 0 MW — Tasmania is neither importing nor exporting to Victoria. With TAS1 priced at $96.76/MWh against VIC1 at $93.38/MWh, the $3.38/MWh spread is too thin to drive commercial dispatch across the link, or hydro scheduling is holding back Tasmanian generation at this hour. The DirectLink (N-Q-MNSP1) is carrying 33 MW southbound from Queensland into NSW, well within its limits and non-binding — a minor flow with negligible price impact given QNI is doing the heavy lifting on that corridor.
No constraint notices are active in AEMO's market systems at this interval, meaning the Heywood and Murraylink binding events are reflecting physical thermal limits rather than network constraint equations flagged separately. The key watch for today is whether SA demand eases enough to allow Heywood to back off its export cap — any relaxation there would compress the SA-VIC spread quickly given how close Murraylink already is to its ceiling.