Interconnector Watch: Sunday 10 May 2026

At 06:35 AEST, no NEM interconnector is formally binding, but several are operating at or very close to their import limits, which is directly shaping this morning's regional price stack. The most notable is Basslink (T-V-MNSP1), flowing 80.71 MW from Tasmania into Victoria — precisely at its current import limit of 80.71 MW. While not flagged as binding in the dispatch solution, the flow sitting exactly on the import limit indicates the constraint is effectively active and Tasmania's export capacity into Victoria is fully utilised in this direction. VIC1 at $123.41/MWh and TAS1 at $103.04/MWh reflects the $20.37/MWh spread that this constrained northward flow cannot fully arbitrage away. Similarly, VIC-NSW (VIC1-NSW1) is carrying 66.98 MW northward from Victoria into NSW, also sitting exactly at its import limit of 66.98 MW — again, not formally flagged binding but operationally saturated. NSW1 at $93.24/MWh sits $30.17/MWh below Victoria, consistent with Victoria being unable to push further volume north to close the gap.

Heywood (V-SA) is the largest flow by magnitude, carrying 278.31 MW westward from Victoria into South Australia against an export limit of 600 MW — utilisation sits around 46%, leaving headroom. Despite this, SA1 prices at $128.92/MWh remain the highest on the mainland, a $5.51/MWh premium over VIC1 and a $42.19/MWh premium over NSW1. The spread between SA and Victoria is modest relative to the available capacity, suggesting the price differential is being driven by SA's own local supply conditions rather than interconnector congestion on Heywood itself. Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) is flowing 27 MW from Victoria into SA — well within its 98 MW export limit at 28% utilisation — providing a secondary but minor west-bound transfer.

On QNI (NSW1-QLD1), 529.66 MW is flowing southward from Queensland into NSW, at 49% of the import limit of 1,075.49 MW — meaningful headroom remains. QLD1 is the cheapest mainland region at $86.73/MWh, $6.51/MWh below NSW1, and that spread is sustaining the southward flow. An active market notice (N-AR_TX constraint set, invoked 8 May) related to the unplanned outage of the Armidale No.3 330/132 kV transformer continues to limit N-Q-MNSP1 (Directlink), which is flowing a modest 25 MW northward from NSW into Queensland. A separate active notice (N-MBTE_1) from the Directlink No.3 leg outage on 5 May also remains in force on N-Q-MNSP1, compounding the restriction on that smaller DC link. Combined, these network events constrain Directlink's effective capacity northward and have an ongoing, if secondary, influence on the QNI/NSW-QLD transfer corridor.

The key watch points today are the Basslink and VIC-NSW limits. Both are running at their effective import ceilings this interval. Any increase in Victorian demand or reduction in Victorian supply through the day could tighten the VIC1-NSW1 spread further and put upward pressure on Victorian prices,