NEM Overview: Monday 31 August 2026
NEM spot prices are showing a wide east-west spread this morning, with WA1 the highest at 91.48 $/MWh and TAS1 the lowest at 11.88 $/MWh — an 80 $/MWh gap across the market. NSW1 sits at 76.77 $/MWh on demand of 8,385 MW, QLD1 at 63.76 $/MWh (6,314 MW), VIC1 at 35.78 $/MWh (5,706 MW), and SA1 at 14.15 $/MWh (1,427 MW). The NSW1 premium reflects its generation mix leaning heavily on black coal (4,993 MW) with comparatively thin wind (477 MW) and solar (100 MW) output, while SA1 and TAS1 are pricing near-floor levels on strong wind and hydro availability respectively.
NEM-wide renewable penetration is running at 48.8%, but the regional spread is stark: TAS1 is at 100% renewable (392 MW hydro, 301 MW wind) and SA1 at 97.8% (1,729 MW wind, 78 MW battery), against NSW1 at just 15.9% and QLD1 at 25.2%. Carbon intensity scores mirror this divide — SA1 at 0.0108 tCO2/MWh and TAS1 at zero, versus NSW1 at 0.7386 tCO2/MWh and QLD1 at 0.6553 tCO2/MWh. VIC1 sits mid-range at 52.7% renewable, with brown coal (3,006 MW) and wind (3,254 MW) running close to parity. The overall market conditions score of 46.4 and grid stress reading of 61 point to a moderately tight system, consistent with the VIC1-NSW1 interconnector binding at 968 MW export and V-SA binding at -602 MW.
Weather supports strong wind generation in SA1 and VIC1 today, with SA1 wind potential building through the afternoon; NSW1 conditions are calm (4.8 km/h wind, clear skies), keeping solar potential moderate at 31% and limiting renewable displacement of coal generation there. QLD1 cloud cover of 51% is capping solar output at present, though this should clear through the day. Demand is manageable across all regions with no minimum system load conditions currently active, though SA1 has a history of MSL1 breaches this week and should be watched around midday given persistent oversupply risk from wind.
On notices: no active AEMO market interventions or directions remain in force this morning — the SA1 voltage-related interventions and directions from 29-30 August have all been cancelled. Two MARKET SYSTEMS changes are scheduled for 3 September (MSATS FTA Release 2 outage 13:00-17:00 AEST, and MarketNet VPN edge device patching 10:00-14:00 AEST) — participants should plan around these for settlement and B2B system access. The NSW1 Sydney North-Kemps Creek 330kV line outage that was in constraint set N-KCSN_14 has been cleared, restoring normal transfer capability into today's trading.