Visayas grid on Yellow Alert

CEBU, Philippines — The Department of Energy (DOE) is closely monitoring and coordinating with the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and all generation companies on the current power supply condition following the Red and Yellow Alerts declared in the Luzon grid yesterday and Yellow Alert in the Visayas.

In Luzon, the DOE instructed distribution utilities, including the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) and electric cooperatives, to activate their Interruptible Load Program to help reduce the overall demand in the grid.

This is the first time a Red Alert in Luzon has been declared after almost a year.

The DOE reiterated the directive of the president for all government offices to take the lead in conserving energy and minimizing power use particularly during this period. Industrial and commercial establishments are also encouraged to minimize using power during peak hours via flexible work arrangements and other conservation measures.

“No energy should be wasted while we make sure that we remain productive, while we continue to monitor and ask our power plant operators to work on restoring full operations, we can maximize our energy efficiency efforts as we go through this period of extreme heat,” said DOE Secretary Raphael Lotilla.

The public is also encouraged to minimize the use of electricity during peak hours.

A Red Alert was issued from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. today while a Yellow Alert was declared from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., and 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. following the unscheduled outages of some generating plants in Luzon.

A Yellow Alert was also issued in the Visayas Grid from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. yesterday due to outages and deration of several generation facilities.

The NGCP said that within these times the available capacity is 2,742 megawatts while the peak demand is 2,440MW in the Visayas grid.

NGCP said that 12 power plants are on forced outage, while five others are running on derated capacities, for a total of 676.5MW unavailable to the Visayas grid.

A Yellow Alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement and it is issued when the power reserves are lower than usual. It doesn't necessarily mean that brownouts will occur, but it's a sign that the power supply isn’t as robust as it should be.

Red Alert is a more severe advisory, indicating that the power supply is significantly low and insufficient to meet the demand in the grid. When this is issued, there's a higher chance of rotational brownouts or manual load dropping.

“These alerts are part of a system to manage and communicate the status of the electricity supply and potential shortages to the public. They help in preparing for possible power interruptions and in taking measures to conserve energy,” NGCP said.

As of yesterday afternoon, NGCP said it may implement Manual Load Dropping in the some areas of Luzon, to maintain the integrity of the power system but no dropping was implemented yet in the Visayas. — (FREEMAN)