Red alert issued for Luzon, Visayas grids on May 23

MANILA, Philippines — The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) announced that the Luzon and Visayas grids will be placed on red alert on Thursday with several power plants either offline or operating at reduced capacity.

According to the NGCP advisory posted on Facebook, the Luzon grid will be under red alert from 1 p.m. to p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Yellow alert will be up from 12 noon to 1 p.m., 5 to 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. (May 24)

Available capacity in Luzon is 13,531 megawatts, with peak demand at 13,597 MW.

A total of 18 power plants are on forced outage — three of which since 2023, four since between January and March 2024, and 11 since between April and May 2024.

Three power plants are running on derated capacities, for a total of 2,525.5MW unavailable to the grid.

In the Visayas grid, red alert will be raised from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 7 p.m. Yellow alert will be up from 12 noon to 2 p.m., 4 to 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The available capacity is 2,588 MW while peak demand is 2,537 MW.

The NGCP said 21 power plants in Visayas are on forced outage and three operating on derated capacities. This will translate to unavailability to the grid of 553.1 MW.

“A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement," the NGCP said.

Under yellow alert, the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.