NGCP places Luzon, Visayas grids under red, yellow alerts

MANILA, Philippines – Red and yellow alerts have been raised over the Luzon and Visayas grids due to insufficient power supply, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) announced on Thursday, May 14.

According to the state grid operator, as of its 8 am advisory, the Luzon grid will be on yellow alert from 3 pm to 4 pm and 10 pm to 11 pm. Red alert will be raised between 4 pm to 10 pm.

The NGCP said 14 power plants are running on derated capacities, making around 4,200 megawatts (MW) unavailable to the grid.

The NGCP estimates power demand in Luzon to peak at 12,595 MW, but the grid only has 12,479 MW of available capacity.

Meanwhile, the Visayas grid will be under yellow alert from 3 pm to 4 pm and 9 pm to 11 pm. It will be placed under red alert 4 pm to 9 pm. The grid has 12 power plants running on derated capacities, with 11 plants on forced outage since March.

Demand in the Visayas is expected to peak at 2,541 MW but the grid can only supply 2,413 MW.

The NGCP issues a red alert status when the power supply is not enough to meet consumer demand and the grid’s regulating requirements.

A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is not enough to meet the grid’s contingency requirements.

In a Facebook post, Department of Energy Secretary Sharon Garin appealed to consumers to cut back on power consumption during peak hours. These include unplugging unused appliances and limiting aircon usage.

“Patuloy pong nakikipag-ugnayan ang DOE sa lahat ng concerned agencies at power industry stakeholders upang mabawasan ang epekto nito sa ating mga consumers,” she wrote.

(The DOE will continue to coordinate with all concerned agencies and power industry stakeholders to reduce its impact on our consumers.)

The Manila Electric Company (Meralco), which serves around 8.11 million customers in Metro Manila and Luzon, said it sought support of its commercial and industrial customers under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) to ease the growing demand.

The ILP is a program of the DOE and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) which allows companies with a peak demand of at least 1 MW to operate their own generator sets.

Meralco also said that it is ready to implement manual load dropping (MLD) or rotational power interruptions to help manage the system.

“Yesterday, May 13, Meralco was asked by NGCP to implement MLD — also given the Red Alert. The rotating service interruptions affected about 1.9 million customers in portions of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Quezon and Rizal. Services were fully restored by 12:14 am, May 14,” the Pangilinan-led power distributor said.  – Rappler.com