NEM Overview

Tasmania is the price outlier this morning at $96.79/MWh against a NEM mainland range of $64.29–$71.30/MWh, with the Basslink interconnector (T-V-MNSP1) sitting at zero flow — Tasmania is neither exporting to nor importing from Victoria. With hydro at 368 MW and wind at 134 MW, the island is fully self-supplied on renewables at 100% penetration and 0 tCO2/MWh, but that isolation is keeping its price elevated relative to the rest of the NEM. South Australia at $68.84/MWh is running 89% renewable penetration on 325 MW of wind plus 339 MW flowing in from Victoria via V-SA, with carbon intensity at just 0.056 tCO2/MWh. WA sits at $100.34/MWh but operates on a separate market and its demand figure is unavailable in the current dataset.

Interconnector flows show Victoria exporting 424 MW north to NSW and 339 MW west to SA, while Queensland is a net exporter of 535 MW into NSW via the NSW1-QLD1 link. NEM-wide renewable penetration scores at 21.9% — a relatively low figure reflecting evening conditions with solar at zero across all regions. NSW demand leads at 6,280 MW with a generation mix dominated by black coal at 3,705 MW alongside 286 MW of hydro and 212 MW of wind, priced at $71.30/MWh. Victoria at 4,203 MW sits on 2,065 MW of brown coal and 405 MW of wind, with gas OCGT filling 109 MW, priced at $64.29/MWh.

The most operationally significant active notice is the unplanned outage of the Larcom Creek–Calliope River 275kV line in Queensland at 0232 AEST this morning, which invoked constraint set Q-LCCP_8859 at 0240 AEST. This constraint has equations on both the N-Q-MNSP1 and NSW1-QLD1 interconnectors and remains active — traders with Queensland or cross-border exposure should monitor this closely as it constrains the QLD-NSW transfer capability. The NSW-VIC negative settlement residue constraint (NRM_NSW1_VIC1) that operated from 1405–1500 AEST on 4 April has been cancelled, so that directional restriction on VIC1-NSW1 is no longer in force.

Grid stress scores at 77.3/100, which is elevated for a Sunday morning and likely reflects the Queensland network constraint and the sustained interconnector loading. Market conditions score at 53.8 and price stability at 55.1 suggest moderate volatility risk through today. As solar ramps from mid-morning, SA renewable penetration is likely to spike well above current levels given its wind base, and downward price pressure across the southern mainland is the expected pattern through the 10:00–15:00 AEST window. The Queensland constraint is the primary variable — watch for any updates to Q-LCCP_8859 scope or clearance that could shift QLD-NSW flows.