Visayas Grid Placed Under Red Alert Again Due to Power Supply Constraints

MANILA, Philippines — Rotating blackouts threatened the Visayas yesterday after the grid was placed under red alert due to continued power supply constraints. The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said the red alert would take effect from 5 to 7 p.m. as available supply was no longer sufficient to meet consumers’ demand. Under the red alert, the NGCP and power utilities may implement manual load dropping or rotational blackouts to maintain grid stability and prevent a wider outage. Meanwhile, a yellow alert was also in effect from 3 to 5 p.m. and from 7 to 8 p.m. A yellow alert is raised when power reserves fall to low levels. Since the start of the year, the Visayas grid has recorded 40 red and 104 yellow alerts. The NGCP said three major coal-fired power plants in the Visayas remained offline, while electricity imports from Mindanao were limited. Nearly 1,000 megawatts were unavailable to the grid, as 33 power plants have been on a forced outage and 15 others are operating at reduced output. As a result, only 2,352 MW were available while peak demand was projected to be at 2,492 MW.