NEM Overview: Friday 22 May 2026

Spot prices across the NEM are sitting at moderate to elevated levels as of 06:30 AEST, with a notable spread between regions. Tasmania is the most expensive region at $106.16/MWh, followed by Queensland at $82.50/MWh, while NSW ($56.07/MWh), SA ($48.05/MWh), and Victoria ($47.93/MWh) are tracking closer together in the mid-to-upper $40s–$50s range. Tasmania's premium reflects its position with the Basslink interconnector (T-V-MNSP1) sitting at zero flow — no power is currently moving between Tasmania and Victoria in either direction — leaving the island effectively isolated from mainland price arbitrage at this interval. Queensland's elevated price against NSW is notable given the two regions are exchanging only 3.66 MW south across the NSW1-QLD1 interconnector, well below capacity, suggesting limited arbitrage is occurring there too. Victoria is exporting 783.94 MW north into NSW via VIC1-NSW1 and 95.22 MW west into SA via V-SA, both well within limits and non-binding.

NEM-wide renewable penetration sits at 40.7%. Wind is the dominant renewable contributor this morning, with Victoria producing 1,664 MW, NSW 1,359 MW, SA 1,304 MW, QLD 1,056 MW, and Tasmania 176 MW — a combined wind output of approximately 5,560 MW across the NEM. Solar contribution is effectively zero across all regions at this pre-dawn interval. SA is the standout on carbon intensity at just 0.015 tCO2/MWh with 97% renewable penetration, powered almost entirely by wind with a token 40 MW of gas CCGT online. Tasmania sits at zero carbon intensity on 100% hydro and wind. Victoria's carbon intensity is the highest on the NEM at 0.884 tCO2/MWh, with brown coal generating 4,386 MW against demand of 5,007 MW. NSW black coal is running 3,953 MW, QLD black coal 4,165 MW with 106 MW of gas OCGT supplementing. The grid stress score of 78.9 warrants attention — elevated for a Saturday morning and consistent with the tight interconnector flows and Tasmania's pricing isolation.

Two operational items are active today. A planned outage window for Cisco ISE Servers is scheduled 10:00–17:00 AEST today (CHG0110834); SSL VPN participants may experience authentication delays, though IPWAN and LAN-to-LAN connections are unaffected — log in ahead of the window if needed. The Gas Hub B2B r46 schema update cutover is also underway today (10:00–20:00 AEST), affecting east coast gas market participants moving to the new aseXML schema; WA participants are excluded. Neither notice affects NEM dispatch directly. Looking ahead to today's trading, Queensland's clear skies and strong solar potential (forecast avg 11.2) should bring meaningful solar generation into the afternoon, which may compress QLD prices from their current level. Victoria and NSW face heavy cloud cover all day with near-zero solar potential, keeping those regions dependent on their current thermal and wind mix through the trading day.