Third week of yellow alerts looms for Visayas power grid

THIN POWER SUPPLY margins in the Visayas are entering a third week, with the region’s grid again placed under yellow alert in the face of sustained high demand.

In an advisory on Monday, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said yellow alert was raised over the Visayas grid from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Yellow alerts are issued when the power reserve margin thins. It continues to be driven by forced outages of major coal-fired power plants in the Visayas.

As of May 25, a total of 21 power plants remained unavailable, including a facility that has been offline since 2021, while 13 plants are running derated. As a result, a total of 874.1 megawatts (MW) was unavailable to the grid.

During the period, available capacity stood at 2,664 MW against peak demand of 2,483 MW.

“The Luzon and Mindanao grids are expected to operate under normal conditions,” the NGCP said.

The latest grid alert brings the total to 18 yellow alerts and six red alerts in Luzon and the Visayas this year.

While Luzon took a break from power interruptions last week, the province of Palawan recently suffered a blackout due to a transmission failure.

In a statement on Monday, the Department of Energy said the system-wide blackout on May 22 in Palawan has been addressed following coordinated actions among agencies and electric cooperatives.

Citing the initial assessment of the National Power Corp. (NPC), the outage occurred due to the failure of a corroded section of the NPC’s Irawan-Aborlan 69-kilovolt transmission line in Puerto Princesa City. This has resulted in the interruption of electricity service across affected areas from Bataraza to Taytay. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera