Nearly 1M Meralco customers hit by rotational brownouts

More than 920,000 Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) customers across Metro Manila and nearby provinces were affected by rotational brownouts on Wednesday after the Luzon Grid was placed under Red Alert.

In an advisory this evening, Meralco said manual load dropping (MLD) or rotational outages lasting two to three hours affected customers in parts of Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, and Rizal.

Around 270,000 affected services had already been restored as of posting time.

Meralco said large customers under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) helped ease grid pressure by de-loading about 240 megawatts (MW).

Earlier today, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Luzon Grid under Red Alert from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., and under Yellow Alert from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

NGCP said peak demand reached 12,537 MW while available capacity stood at 12,447 MW, with 4,681.6 MW unavailable to the grid.