Outages, derated plants strain Visayas grid

Consumers in Visayas may have to brace themselves for any potential power supply issues as the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the regional grid under yellow alert status on Tuesday. 

In an advisory, the NGCP said a yellow alert is in effect from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and again from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

“Factors that contributed to the raising of yellow alert include a significant number of plants on unplanned/forced outages and de-rated capacities and high system demand,” the NGCP said.

The available capacity on the grid is 2,889 megawatts (MW), while peak demand is expected to reach 2,489 MW. However, 744 MW of capacity is currently unavailable due to multiple power plant issues.

NGCP said a total of 12 plants were on forced outage between April and August, while six other facilities have remained offline since 2023. In addition, eight power plants are operating on derated or limited capacity.

A yellow alert is declared when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the grid’s contingency requirement, though no rotational brownouts are expected unless reserves drop further.

Meanwhile, the Luzon and Mindanao grids remain under normal conditions.