Third straight day of red alerts rattles Luzon

Consumers should brace for another round of rotating brownouts as the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Luzon and Visayas grids under red and yellow alerts.

In Luzon, red alert status, raised for third straight time this week, will run from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m., while yellow alerts are set from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Available capacity stood at 13,508 megawatts (MW) against peak demand of 13,881MW.

NGCP said 16 plants have been on forced outage since May, while several others have remained offline since previous months and years. Another 14 plants are running on derated capacities, leaving 4,160MW unavailable to the grid.

“The Tayabas-Ilijan 500kV Line and the Dasmarinas-Ilijan 500kV Line were restored on 13 May 2026 at 2:44PM and 4:52PM, respectively. We are waiting for the affected plants to resynchronize back to the grid,” NGCP said.

The Visayas grid, for the fourth time, was also placed on red alert from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., with yellow alerts from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Available capacity reached 2,441MW against peak demand of 2,661MW.

NGCP said 11 Visayas plants have been on forced outage since May, while 11 more are operating below capacity, resulting in 841.3MW unavailable to the grid.

A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement. A yellow alert, on the other hand, is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

Yesterday, the Department of Energy and the Energy Regulatory Commission asked the transmission and power plant operators to