NGCP to place Visayas grid on red, yellow alert Thursday

MANILA, Philippines — The Visayas grid will be placed on red and yellow alerts on Thursday, Oct. 22, said the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP).

In an advisory, the NGCP said the Visayas grid will be placed under red alert from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

READ: NGCP: Mindanao reserves may run out by 2028

It will then be placed under yellow alert from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

“A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement,” explained the NGCP.

“A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement,” it added.

Among the factors cited by the NGCP that contributed to the alert declaration is the unavailability of Visayas’ large coal plants PEDC 3 and KSPC 1, as well as the limited power imports from Mindanao due to the planned outages of GNPK 4, TSI 2, and unplanned outage of Pulangi 4 U2.

According to the NGCP, the grid’s current available capacity is only at 2,608 megawatts (MW), with its peak demand at 2,581MW

Five plants, meanwhile, have been on forced outage since October, two more since September, three since August, one plant since June, three plants since May, three other plants since 2025, another one since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021.

Meanwhile, 21 plants are running on derated capacities, for a total of 599.1MW unavailable to the grid. /jpv