Interconnector Watch: Sunday 9 August 2026

Two of the NEM's six interconnectors are binding at 10:30am AEST, both on the Victoria-South Australia corridor. Heywood (V-SA) is fully constrained at its import limit of -550 MW, and Murraylink (V-S-MNSP1) is similarly pinned at -77.57 MW, its exact import limit. Both are flowing SA-to-Victoria at maximum capacity, which is consistent with SA's $54.52/MWh price sitting below VIC1's $64.76/MWh — cheaper SA generation is being exported to the fullest extent the network allows, but the binding constraints mean SA can't fully arbitrage the ~$10/MWh spread with Victoria.

VIC-NSW (VIC1-NSW1) is running heavily loaded at 699.22 MW northward, well within its 848.06 MW export limit but representing roughly 82% utilisation. This flow is compressing the NSW1-VIC1 spread, with NSW1 at $73.51/MWh against VIC1's $64.76/MWh — Victorian supply is helping meet NSW demand of 8,976.74 MW. Basslink (T-V-MNSP1) is flowing 97.87 MW from Tasmania into Victoria, sitting right at its import limit, linking TAS1's $63.24/MWh to the VIC1 market. QNI (NSW1-QLD1) is flowing 254.51 MW from QLD to NSW, well under its 990.38 MW import limit, while Directlink (N-Q-MNSP1) contributes a modest 9 MW in the same direction — combined these are narrowing the NSW1-QLD1 gap, though QLD1 at $71.77/MWh remains close to NSW1's $73.51/MWh regardless.

On the constraints side, an unplanned outage of the Bayswater-Sydney West No.32 330kV line at 05:31 AEST triggered the N-BWSW_32 constraint set at 05:40, affecting QNI, Directlink and VIC-NSW simultaneously. This sits on top of an already-active Q-HATR constraint from the 8 August Tarong circuit breaker outage and the ongoing NSW security-driven CA_SYDS_59839EB2 constraint invoked 3 August, both of which continue to bind on NSW1-QLD1 and Directlink. None of these NSW/QLD constraints currently show as MW-binding in the flow data, but they reduce the effective transfer capability being used, which is why QNI is running well short of its import limit despite the NSW1-QLD1 price differential. WA1, operating outside the interconnected NEM, remains isolated at $100.41/MWh with no cross-border relief available.