Grid operator National Grid Corp. of the Philippines has issued a yellow alert for the Luzon power grid for two hours Tuesday due to thin reserves following high demand and plant outage.
NGCP issued the yellow alert from 1 pm to 2 pm as available power generation capacity was placed at 11,637 megawatts versus peak demand of 10,794 MW.
“Luzon grid is on yellow alert due to the unexpected shutdown and limited generation of some power plants, and high power demand,” NGCP said.
The yellow alert was lifted at 2:56 pm yesterday due to sufficient generating capacity and no brownouts occurred.
Among the power plants that went offline were Calaca 2 (300MW), Malaya 2 (320 MW), Makban 5 (55 MW), SLPGC 1 (150 MW) totaling 525 MW.
Power plants derated or not running at full capacity included Calaca 1 (230 MW) and SCPC 2 (75 MW).
NGCP said highest peak demand occurred at 1:53 pm Monday at 10,876 MW for the Luzon grid.
Monday’s peak demand surpassed the peak demand last May 22 of 10,750 MW.
This year’s Luzon peak demand of 10,876 MW was higher by more than 800 MW than the peak demand of 10,054 MW on May 9, 2017, reflecting a strong demand for electricity.
The peak demand of 10,054 MW last year represented a 3.4-percent increase from 9,726 MW in 2016.
Power consumption in Luzon also went up by 3.57 percent in 2017 to 69,623,603 megawatt-hours from 67,220,596 mWh in 2018.
“The peak demand overshot the forecast of the DoE (Department of Energy ) last year,” NGCP said.
The Energy Department previously forecasted a peak demand of 10,561 MW this year.