NEM Overview: Sunday 17 May 2026

Spot prices are elevated and tightly clustered across the mainland NEM this morning, with NSW leading at $244.54/MWh (demand 7,619 MW), QLD at $239.95/MWh (6,572 MW), SA at $231.96/MWh (1,366 MW), and VIC at $226.51/MWh (5,266 MW). Tasmania sits well below the pack at $155.44/MWh, with Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) flowing 157 MW northbound at its import limit — the interconnector is binding on the Tasmania side. Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) is at zero flow with both import and export limits zeroed out, confirming the active unplanned outage declared in market notice 144100; this is suppressing the normal SA-VIC transfer pathway and contributing to the tight SA spread. The NSW-QLD interconnector is binding at -221 MW (net flow into NSW), and the Upper Tumut hydro trip event — Units 1–4 tripped overnight as a non-credible contingency — has removed a significant hydro block from the NSW dispatch stack, with the cause still unknown.

NEM-wide renewable penetration sits at 37.5% per the gridIQ score, though the regional picture is uneven. Tasmania is almost entirely hydro and wind at 95.4% renewable, 0.0299 tCO2/MWh. QLD reaches 25.8% renewable on the back of 868 MW of wind, with black coal at 2,127 MW and gas OCGT at 739 MW making up the balance. NSW is at 18.9% renewable — wind 182 MW, solar 42 MW, hydro 1,083 MW — against a 5,627 MW black coal base; carbon intensity is 0.714 tCO2/MWh. VIC's renewables sit at 13.6% (wind 258 MW, hydro 17 MW) with brown coal at 1,580 MW and gas OCGT at 274 MW; carbon intensity is the highest on the mainland at 0.981 tCO2/MWh. SA is running almost entirely on gas — 462 MW OCGT and 520 MW CCGT — with wind contributing only 69 MW (6.6% renewable), reflecting low wind potential and 100% overcast skies suppressing solar entirely. Grid stress is scored at 82.2/100 and price stability at 41.4/100, reflecting the combination of the Murraylink outage, the Upper Tumut contingency, and the interconnector binding conditions.

The dominant risk for today is the QLD LOR1 forecast from 1700–1900 AEST, with available reserves of 1,014 MW against a requirement of 1,194 MW — a 180 MW shortfall. An earlier LOR2 declaration (notice 144106) identified a more acute 357 MW availability against a 759 MW requirement in that same window; the updated notice 144113 has narrowed the gap but has not cleared it. Queensland is carrying 100% cloud cover today with solar potential at zero, meaning no daytime solar contribution will materialise to ease the afternoon build-up. Traders with exposure to QLD peak intervals should note the binding NSW-QLD interconnector leaves limited headroom for southward relief into QLD. The LOR1 condition also extends into