Interconnector Watch: Tuesday 30 June 2026
At 06:30 AEST, Victoria is the NEM's net exporter, pushing 710.63 MW north into NSW via VIC-NSW (operating at 100% of its current export limit of 710.63 MW) and 335.21 MW west into SA via Heywood (55% of its 604.81 MW import limit, flowing SA-ward). The VIC1 price of $8.94/MWh sits well below NSW1 at $108.84/MWh and SA1 at $52.36/MWh, and these differentials are directly driving both export flows — arbitrage pressure is working as expected across both corridors. Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) is at zero flow with import and export limits both set to 0 MW, indicating the link is effectively unavailable in this interval, leaving TAS1 islanded from VIC1 and settling at $25.12/MWh independently.
Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) is the one binding interconnector this interval, flowing 100.56 MW from VIC1 to SA1 and sitting hard against its export limit of 100.56 MW. This constraint is actively capping additional VIC-to-SA transfer capacity and is contributing to the $43.42/MWh price spread that remains between SA1 ($52.36/MWh) and VIC1 ($8.94/MWh) — without the binding constraint, that spread would ordinarily attract greater flow. An active AEMO constraint notice (I-OSC_STAB_MON, invoked due to the Psymetrix PhasorPoint planned outage) lists V-S-MNSP1 as an affected interconnector on the LHS of constraint equations, which is a contributing factor to the reduced headroom on Murraylink today.
On the QNI corridor, NSW1-QLD1 carries 476.93 MW southbound from Queensland into NSW — 48% utilisation of the 993.27 MW import limit — with QLD1 at $101.58/MWh modestly above NSW1 at $108.84/MWh. The small price inversion (NSW higher than QLD despite receiving imports) suggests the flow direction reflects dispatch economics earlier in the period rather than a simple spot spread, and traders should watch whether NSW demand at 8,496.72 MW tightens this spread through the morning peak. The Greenbank 275 kV SVC outage (constraint set Q-GB_VC, active since 1500 hrs yesterday) remains in force, placing limits on both NSW1-QLD1 and Directlink (N-Q-MNSP1). Directlink is flowing just 17 MW southbound from QLD1 to NSW1 against a 96.9 MW import limit — well below capacity and non-binding. No loss data is available across any interconnector this interval.