Interconnector Watch: Sunday 24 May 2026

Queensland is the highest-priced region at $111.11/MWh, with NSW close behind at $107.03/MWh and Tasmania at $103.20/MWh. Victoria sits at $95.63/MWh and SA at $82.65/MWh. These spreads are directly reflected in current interconnector flow directions: QNI (NSW1-QLD1) is pushing 115.36 MW northward from NSW into Queensland, operating at 98% of its export limit of 118.05 MW and effectively at capacity — the tightest utilisation across the NEM right now. VIC-NSW (VIC1-NSW1) is exporting 502.10 MW from Victoria into NSW, sitting at 49% of its 1,021.07 MW export ceiling, consistent with Victoria's lower price drawing energy toward the higher-priced NSW and Queensland stack. No interconnectors are flagged as binding in the current dispatch interval, but QNI's near-limit position warrants close monitoring as any upward movement in Queensland demand could see it bind.

On the SA corridor, Heywood (V-SA) is flowing 455.49 MW from SA into Victoria — the sign convention indicates SA is exporting — at 76% of its import limit of 600.53 MW into Victoria. SA's $82.65/MWh price, the lowest on the mainland, is consistent with energy flowing east toward the higher-priced Victorian market. However, Heywood is subject to an active constraint notice: the Tailem Bend 275 kV East Bus suffered a short-notice outage at 12:50 on 24 May, invoking constraint set S-TB275_E_BUS with V-SA on the left-hand side. This is limiting transfer capability on the corridor and is the primary structural risk to SA-VIC flows today. Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) is carrying a modest 36 MW from SA into Victoria, well within its 116 MW import limit, but is operating under two active constraint notices stemming from an unplanned outage of the Redcliffs converter station on 16 May — constraint sets I-ML_ZERO and I-MURRAYLINK remain active, which explains the significantly reduced throughput on this link relative to normal operating conditions.

Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) is sitting at zero flow, with Tasmania priced at $103.20/MWh and Victoria at $95.63/MWh. The $7.57/MWh spread would ordinarily support a southward export from Tasmania into Victoria, but zero flow suggests either a scheduled outage, operational limitation, or dispatch outcome where the spread is insufficient after accounting for losses and constraints. The South Morang F2 500/330 kV transformer outage notice from 20 May — which invoked constraints on T-V-MNSP1, VIC1-NSW1, V-SA, and V-S-MNSP1 — has a scheduled return of 17:00 on 22 May, so that constraint set should have cleared, but traders should verify current Basslink scheduling in AEMO's NOS. No loss figures are available in the current dataset across all links. The overall picture is one of energy flowing from lower-priced SA and Victoria toward higher-priced NSW and Queensland, with QNI the most constrained corridor and the Tailem Bend outage the active network risk on the SA-VIC interface.