Australia's east coast has avoided blackouts, in part thanks to a freeze on a key electricity market — something that's never happened before.
But for how long will it stay on hold? And what happens next?
Let's break down what's going on and how it will affect your power supply.
Why is this happening?
First up, several of Australia's ageing coal generators are offline for maintenance.
Add to that skyrocketing gas prices thanks to sanctions on energy-rich Russia over the Ukraine war, and higher demand during winter, and you've got a painful mix.
But there's been more at play here — enter Australia's electricity market.
So how does the market work here?
For electricity, Australia's got two wholesale markets — that's where your power supplier buys energy from those who make it.
All the states and territories (except for Western Australia and the Northern Territory) are part of the National Electricity Market (or NEM). The other one, for the record, is the Wholesale Electricity Market which just covers WA and hasn't been affected.
Generators "bid in" their offers, telling the market how much they're willing to produce.
The Australian Energy Market Operator (that's the AEMO) is in charge of these markets, and it's done two things in recent days.
First, a price cap kicked in at the start of this week. That limited the price that power generators would be paid to $300 a megawatt hour.
But generators were withdrawing their bids to supply energy because their costs were far higher than the cap.
That's when the market was suspended on Wednesday afternoon — the first time it had ever happened.
Daniel Westerman, the AEMO's CEO, said on the morning of the freeze the operator had to demand suppliers to put 5,000 megawatts online, which is about 20 per cent of the east coast's needs.
And the AEMO getting involved like that isn't how the market is supposed to work.
"That created a very unstable situation for us as the market and system operator," Mr Westerman said.
Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen said the government backed the move, saying the market "was not working as intended".
How long will this freeze go on for?
We don't know yet.
Mr Bowen said it wouldn't be for "a day more or less" than necessary and the AEMO was reviewing it daily.
Johanna Bowyer, lead analyst for Australian electricity at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), said it wouldn't end until the AEMO was ready.
But while the market is suspended, some generators will be eligible for taxpayer-funded compensation.
Mr Bowen said there would be close scrutiny on energy producers while the freeze was on.
"The energy regulator has our full support in monitoring all behaviour," he said.
Australian Energy Council chief executive Sarah McNamara says electricity generators have been cooperative during the crisis.
"Things will ease a bit once we get some of those generation units back online that have been out for essential maintenance purposes," Ms McNamara said.
"It really is a day to day situation, but I think residential consumers shouldn't be concerned overly."
But Tim Buckley, director at the IEEFA, said it was time these big companies were "called out".
"It's not about the energy not being there, it's about too much of it being suctioned out of our domestic east-coast market off to export," he said.
"They pay next to no royalties for our resources."
Does this end the blackout threat?
Yes, while the spot market is suspended there won't be blackouts, AEMO's boss said.
In an update on Thursday, AEMO said that since suspending the spot market, it has "been able to manage electricity supply more effectively to meet expected demand, with the cooperation of NEM participants. There have been significant improvements in AEMO's certainty of generator availability and limitations".
It said the risk of power shortfalls was averted last night in New South Wales, but noted challenges remain in the energy sector, with "dynamic supply conditions".
It added that on Thursday, AEMO's forecast for reserve conditions have improved across all NEM regions.
"Following close coordination with the NSW Government and generators, reserve levels have improved markedly in NSW," it said, adding it was still too early to say when the market would resume normal operations.
A day earlier, Mr Westerman said the "lack of reserve" would ease in the coming days, and that right now there are still tight conditions. He asked people to continue to do things like postpone putting on the dishwasher and washing machine until later in the night.
So after all this, does the market need change?
There are calls for an independent inquiry after the crisis.
Ms Bowyer said it should examine the power generators' confidential contracts to see how much they're paying for raw materials like coal.
"This whole thing is just showing that coal-fired and gas-fired electricity is so expensive."
She said moving to wind and solar, which was around $40 to $60 a megawatt hour to generate, far below a $300 cap, would protect the nation against "volatile international coal and gas prices."
Unions including the Electrical Trades Union have also backed the move for an independent review.
