Electricity supply on Australia's east coast is under major pressure, but a key power generator says everything is being done to keep the lights on.
Federal Energy Minister Chris Bowen is confident the east coast will avoid blackouts and load-shedding because of the swift action of regulators.
But a perfect storm of coal-fired power station outages, high demand due to a cold snap and problems in the global and domestic gas markets continue to feed fears of blackouts in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
"The market is under real pressure ... and certainly operators like us are working hard," Alinta Energy executive director Daniel McClelland told Nine Network on Wednesday.
"It started early (in the winter season) and we have some supply-side challenges because we got some outages at the moment - some unforced and some planned."
But Mr McClelland said the market operator was doing a "great job working with operators like us to make sure that we are there, doing everything that we can."
Australian Energy Market Operator linked up with governments, industry and power generators overnight to cover forecast supply shortfalls in Queensland and NSW.
It also warned the potential emergency was likely to run into Wednesday.
"AEMO continues to encourage generators to bid their availability into the market with forecast Lack of Reserve conditions tomorrow (Wednesday) evening in all regions of the National Electricity Market," it said on Tuesday afternoon.
"AEMO will continue to monitor reserve conditions."