Interconnector Watch: Friday 8 May 2026

At 06:30 AEST, NEM-wide interconnector flows are active on four of the five monitored links, with no interconnectors currently binding against their limits. The dominant flow is on QNI (NSW1-QLD1) at -909 MW, meaning power moves north from NSW into Queensland, running at 84% of the import limit of -1,086 MW — the closest any link sits to its limit this interval. This northward flow aligns with QLD pricing at $93.79/MWh sitting $15.62/MWh below NSW at $109.41/MWh, a spread that makes NSW the price setter and draws Queensland toward equilibrium. VIC-NSW (VIC1-NSW1) carries 531 MW northward from Victoria into NSW, utilising 39% of its 1,350 MW export capability, consistent with Victoria at $96.02/MWh pricing below NSW. Heywood (V-SA) flows 493 MW westward from Victoria into South Australia at 83% of the 592 MW export limit — not binding, but the tightest margin on the southern corridor — with SA's $107.00/MWh premium over Victoria's $96.02/MWh sustaining that flow direction. Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) adds a further 45 MW into SA, operating well within its 134 MW export cap. Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) sits at zero flow, with Tasmania at $88.18/MWh and Victoria at $96.02/MWh; the absence of flow despite an apparent arbitrage opportunity warrants monitoring, though no binding constraint is flagged on Basslink at this interval.

The key active constraint notice affecting interconnector capability is the unplanned outage of the Armidale No.3 330/132 kV Transformer, which invoked constraint set N-AR_TX at 15:15 AEST on 8 May, placing the N-Q-MNSP1 (Directlink) interconnector on the left-hand side of binding equations. This remains active. Directlink is currently flowing -57 MW (southward, QLD to NSW), within its -144.9 MW import limit, but the transformer outage is constraining the corridor's headroom. Compounding this, Directlink is also subject to a separate capacity reduction from the unplanned outage of Leg 3, active since 5 May under constraint N-MBTE_1. Together, these two active notices materially reduce the effective transfer capability on the QLD-NSW DC link and contribute to the constraint environment that keeps the QNI AC flow elevated as the primary north-south transfer path.

No binding constraints are currently flagged on VIC-NSW or Heywood, and the earlier Yallourn–Rowville 220 kV lightning reclassification notices in VIC1 have cycled through multiple invocations and revocations — the most recent active notice remains listed but the associated constraint set V-ROYP78_R_N-2 carries no interconnectors on its left-hand side, meaning it is not directly limiting any interconnector flow today. The net picture across the NEM is that price spreads are driving logical flow directions on all active links, no interconnector is currently binding, and the principal risk to transfer capability sits on the QLD-NSW corridor where both Directlink legs and the Armidale transformer outage remain unresolved.