Red, yellow alerts up over Visayas grid Friday

MANILA, Philippines – A red alert status is up for the Visayas grid from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday due to the unavailability of four coal-fired power plants and limited electricity imports from Mindanao.

A yellow alert has also been issued from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said in an advisory.

A yellow alert is issued when a grid’s operating margin is short relative to the contingency requirement, while a red alert is issued when capacity is inadequate relative to demand and the grid’s regulating requirement.

The NGCP estimated the Visayas grid’s available capacity during the day at 2,360 megawatts (MW), while peak demand is expected to reach 2,348 MW.

This is due to the unavailability of Units 1 and 2 of Therma Visayas Inc., Unit 1 of the Kepco SPC Power Corp., Unit 1 of the Cebu Energy Development Corp., and the coal-fired unit of the Toledo Power Co.

READ: Brownouts may hit Visayas amid thin power supply

The NGCP said imports from the Mindanao grid are also limited because of the extended outage of the Sarangani Energy Corp.’s Unit 2 and the planned outage of the STEAG State Power Plant’s Unit 2.

This month alone, seven power plants in the Visayas have been on forced outage, on top of more than 20 others that have been unavailable since 2021.

Twelve plants are also operating at derated capacities, with total loss to the grid at 1,116.1 MW. (PNA)

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