Grid operator National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has declared red and yellow alerts across the three power grids at different hours on Wednesday due to the continued outage of power plants.
A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement, while a yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.
NGCP placed the Luzon grid on red alert from 3PM to 4PM and yellow alert from 1PM to 3PM and 4PM to 10. Available capacity was placed at 14,241 megawatts (MW) compared to a peak demand of 13,643MW.
NGCP said four plants have been on forced outage since 2023—four between January and March 2024, and 12 since April 2024—while two are running on derated capacities for a total of 1,840.3MW unavailable to the grid.
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said that with the help of our big-load customers, who de-loaded from the grid, it did not resort to manual load dropping (MLD) or rotational power interruptions despite the red alert yesterday (April 23).
“Since the Luzon Grid is still under yellow and red alerts today, April 24, we once again asked for the committed de-loading capacities of our commercial and industrial customers under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) to help ease the demand,” Meralco said.
Meralco said, if necessary, it is ready to implement MLD as part of its responsibility to manage the system. “We again urge the public to continue practicing energy conservation and efficiency measures,” Meralco said.
Meanwhile, NGCP placed the Visayas grid on red alert from 12 noon to 5PM and 6PM to 8PM, and yellow alert from 10AM to 12NN, 5PM to 6PM, and 8PM to 9PM. Available capacity is at 2,462MW versus peak demand of 2,525MW.
One plant has been on forced outage since 2022, two since 2023, two between January and March 2024, and 15 since April 2024; while eight plants are running on derated capacities for a total of 621.6MW unavailable to the grid.
“The reduced capacity exported by Mindanao to Visayas also aggravated the power situation in Visayas,” NGCP said.
The Mindanao grid was also placed on yellow alert from 10AM to 4PM with available capacity at 2,761MW and peak demand at 2,614MW.
NGCP said nine plants are on forced outage since April 2024 in the Mindanao grid, while five are running on derated capacities for a total of 673.98MW unavailable to the grid.
