NEM Overview: Saturday 9 May 2026

Spot prices are sitting in a moderate $88–$138/MWh range across the NEM as of 06:35 AEST this morning, with SA1 the highest at $138/MWh on demand of 1,301 MW. NSW1 follows at $118.53/MWh (7,040 MW), VIC1 at $108.99/MWh (4,552 MW), and QLD1 at $105.04/MWh (5,826 MW). TAS1 is the cheapest interconnected region at $88.20/MWh. The $50/MWh spread between SA and Tasmania is notable for a Sunday morning — SA's elevated price reflects its generation mix tonight: 298 MW of gas CCGT and 93 MW of OCGT are running against just 41 MW of wind, with solar zeroed out. The V-SA interconnector is at its export limit of 515.77 MW and binding, meaning VIC is pushing maximum flow into SA but cannot cover the gap cheaply enough to compress the spread further.

NEM-wide renewable penetration sits at 35.2% per the gridIQ score, though regional pictures vary sharply. Tasmania is running at 100% renewable (820 MW hydro, 41 MW wind), while QLD1 is at 3.75% renewable with 2,219 MW of black coal and negligible hydro and wind. NSW1 generates 822 MW of hydro alongside 5,897 MW of black coal, putting renewables at 13.4% of its local mix. VIC1 has 159 MW of wind and 42 MW of hydro against 1,662 MW of brown coal, for 10.8% renewable share. NEM-wide carbon intensity scores at 37.1/100, consistent with a night-time dispatch profile where solar contributes zero across all regions. The NSW1-QLD1 interconnector is flowing 715 MW southbound (NSW importing from QLD), and the N-Q-MNSP1 (Directlink) is flowing 41 MW northbound — note Directlink remains on reduced capacity following the unplanned outage of its No. 3 leg, with constraint set N-MBTE_1 still active.

Two market notices are worth flagging for today. First, MSATS will be offline from 10:00 to 14:00 AEST for the MSATS 56.2 release — meter data processing, B2B transactions, NMI Discovery, and CDR/CDP are all unavailable during that window; participants should front-load any required submissions before 10:00. Second, a network augmentation in NSW was commissioned at 17:40 yesterday, bringing online the Wagga–Dinawan 6L and 6J 330 kV lines along with the Dinawan 330 kV A and B buses — this adds transmission capacity in the Riverina corridor and may influence southbound flow headroom on QNI through the day. The Armidale No. 3 transformer outage constraint (N-AR_TX) limiting QNI remains active and continues to cap northbound NSW-to-QLD transfer capability.

Today's outlook is for prices to remain anchored in the $90–$140/MWh band through the morning ahead of the mid-morning solar ramp. NSW has a favourable solar day forecast (max potential 16.4, 14% cloud cover) which should soften NSW prices