Mindanao grid under red, yellow alerts on September 8 due to tight supply

The Mindanao grid will be placed under red and yellow alerts on Tuesday, September 8, due to the thinning energy reserves, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said. In the latest advisory, the red alert will take place from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Meanwhile, the yellow alert will be in effect from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. The NGCP said that the grid only has an available capacity of 2,673 megawatts (MW) despite a peak demand of 2,639 MW. The grid operator cited the tripping of minergy coal unit 2 and the increase in forecasted system demand by around 100MW. Further, the NGCP said that 10 plants are on forced outage on September, seven plants are on forced outage since August, four plants since July, one plant since June, two plants since January, one plant since 2025, and one plant since 2024. There are also five plants running on derated capacities. The plants on outage and derated capacities resulted in a total of 763.6 MW of capacity unavailable to the Mindanao grid. A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement. On the other hand, a yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement. —VAL, GMA News