Visayas power situation may normalize this month

MANILA, Philippines — The power supply crunch in the Visayas may ease up this month as major coal-fired plants are expected to return to service, according to the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines.

NGCP spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza said unforced power plant outages triggered grid alerts in the Visayas, while tight supply in Mindanao compounded the strain.

The Visayas relies on power imports from Luzon and Mindanao, making the region vulnerable to supply disruptions in either grid. 

“Assuming no further plants go on unplanned shutdowns and plants in Mindanao return to normal operations, we could see the Visayas normalize by Aug. 30,” Alabanza told journalists yesterday.

Since May, the Visayas grid has been under yellow and red alert conditions due to tight power supply driven by high electricity demand and limited available reserves. 

This week alone, the region faced five consecutive days of red alerts as limited imports from Mindanao tightened supply.

Mindanao itself recorded its first red alert on Monday.

A red alert is raised when electricity supply is not sufficient to meet consumers’ demand, raising the risk of rotational blackouts.

A yellow alert is issued when the power supply is about to become insufficient.

As of yesterday, 29 power plants were unavailable in the Visayas, while 14 others were operating at derated capacities, latest NGCP data showed. 

As the country’s sole transmission operator, the NGCP is responsible for the operation, maintenance and development of the state-owned power grid.