FROM 5 TO 8 P.M.
By GMA News
+
Make this your preferred source to get more updates from this publisher on Google.
The Visayas grid will again be placed on yellow alert on Sunday, October 18 due to tight energy reserves, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said.
In an advisory, the NGCP said the yellow alert status will be in effect from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The grid is currently running on an available capacity of 2,512 megawatts (MW) although the peak demand is 2,354 MW.
The yellow alert status declaration is due to the unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants: Panay Energy Development Corporation Unit 3 and KEPCO SPC Power Corporation Unit 1.
The planned maintenance schedule of Mindanao-Visayas interconnection Line 2 also contributed to the thin energy reserve in the grid.
Meanwhile, five plants are on forced outage on October, five plants since September, three plants since August, one plant since June, four plants since May, three plants since 2025, two plants since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021. There are also 17 plants running on derated capacities, for a total of 655.5MW unavailable to the grid.
A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.
To address the thinning energy reserves in the Visayas grid, the Department of Energy (DOE) earlier ordered the NGCP to install over 250 megawatts of battery energy storage system.
The DOE is also mulling to tap liquid fuel facilities to help power up the grid. —Vince Angelo Ferreras/KG, GMA News