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The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) raised red and yellow alerts over Luzon, and the Visayas grids and Mindanao grid at yellow as the number of power plants that went on forced outage this month reached 36.

The NGCP placed Luzon grid under red alert from 3 pm to 4 pm, then on yellow alert from 1 pm to 3 pm and 4 pm to 10 pm.

It noted that the Luzon grid has an available capacity of 14,241 megawatts while its peak demand stood at 13,643 megawatts.

"Four plants have been on forced outage since 2023, four between January and March 2024, and 12 since April 2024; while two are running on derated capacities, for a total of 1,840.3 megawatts unavailable to the grid," it stated.

The NGCP issues a red alert when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement while the yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

It also noted that the reduced capacity exported by Mindanao to Visayas also aggravated the power situation in the Visayas grid as the NGCP also raised a yellow alert in Mindanao grid from 10 am to 4 pm.

The Mindanao grid has an available capacity of 2,761 megawatts and peak demand of 2,614 megawatts. The NGCP noted that "nine plants are on forced outage since April 2024, while five are running on derated capacities, for a total of 673.98 megawatts unavailable to the grid".

For Visayas grid red alert will be raised from 12 noon to 5 pm and 6 pm to 8 pm while yellow alert from 10 am to 12 noon, 5 pm to 6 pm and 8 pm to 9 pm.

The available power capacity for Visayas was at 2,462 megawatts while the peak demand was at 2,525 megawatts.

"One plant has been on forced outage since 2022, two since 2023, two between January and March 2024, and 15 since April 2024; while eight are running on derated capacities, for a total of 621.6MW unavailable to the grid," it stated.

In a radio interview, Cynthia Alabanza, NGCP spokesperson, said the present peak demand in Luzon and Mindanao only have less than a hundred megawatts difference from the projected peak demand for a year.

"I am looking at our data and we have projected peak demand or the highest demand for the year, for Luzon it is in the 3rd week of May but we are now very near the projected peak. Our projection is on the 3rd week of May, 13,900 megawatts but yesterday we were already at 13,864 megawatts so less than a hundred megawatts from the peak," she said.

"In Visayas it still a little far as there is still a difference of 300 megawatts while in Mindanao its also close to the projected peak at 2,584, yesterday its at 2,523 so we don't know if it can exceed in the projected peak for the year," she added. Robina Asido/DMS