Visayas power woes may ease by Aug. 30 – NGCP

MANILA, Philippines — The power situation in the Visayas could stabilize by the end of August as major coal-fired power plants in the region and Mindanao resume commercial operations, the country’s grid operator said Friday.

National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza said during a media briefing that power supply constraints in the Visayas continued due to the shutdown of several power plants.

The situation was further aggravated by the unplanned outage of another power facility in Mindanao, from which the Visayas imports electricity.

“We expect the last two big plants in TVI this month, Aug. 22 and Aug. 30 and we’re hoping that they will come back online,” she said, referring to the two units of Therma Visayas Inc. in Cebu.

“Assuming that no further plants go on unplanned shutdowns and assuming that the plants in Mindanao regularize, then we should also see Visayas normalize by Aug. 30,” Alabanza added.

Red alert

The Visayas grid was placed under red alerts for five consecutive days, along with a series of yellow alerts. Similar power alerts were also raised over the Mindanao grid this week, although it was placed under red alert only once.

On Friday, the NGCP again placed both grids under power alerts, with a red alert in the Visayas from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

A yellow alert means available power supply can still meet demand but leaves little reserve, making the grid vulnerable to brownouts if a power plant goes offline.

A red alert means available power is insufficient to meet demand, increasing the risk of rotational brownouts unless demand is reduced.

Meanwhile, Alabanza said the power situation in Luzon remained stable because the grid does not rely on power from the Visayas and Mindanao.

The NGCP official also reiterated that even if the country has “longer, bigger, more efficient lines, if your problem is supply, then the grid alerts will not stop.”

“Regardless of how many lines NGCP has completed, and we have completed many big-ticket projects over the years, the red alerts seem to be not stopping. They seem to persist,” she said.

Alabanza said the development of the three key segments of the power sector—transmission, distribution and generation—must “be kept in time with each other to prevent red alerts or disturbances to the grid.”

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