Visayas grid on Red, Yellow Alerts ahead of Undas break

MANILA — The Visayas grid will be placed on Red and Yellow Alerts ahead of the All Saints’ Day holiday. 

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said the schedule is as follows: 

Red Alert
5 p.m. – 7 p.m. 

Yellow Alert
3 p.m. – 5 p.m.
7 p.m. – 9 p.m. 

Available grid capacity is 2,359 MW, but peak demand is expected to reach 2,536 MW. 

A red alert means power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand. A yellow alert, meanwhile, means the operating margin is not enough to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

Eight plants have been out since October, while 2 plants have been out since September. Two plants have been out since August, and one since June. Three plants have been out since May. 

The agency said Visayas’ large coal plants, Thermo Visayas 1 and 2 and KEPCO SPC 1, are still out. Power imports from Mindanao are also limited because the GNPower Kauswagan 4 and Thermo South Inc. 2 power plants are still unavailable.

The Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this month said it would investigate generation companies over the power disruptions in Visayas and Mindanao. The Visayas grid has been on Red and Yellow Alerts since May.

In September, the ERC ordered the retroactive implementation of the secondary price cap for August electricity trading in the Visayas and Mindanao spot markets and thereafter. 

An SPC is triggered when the rolling average across the entire Philippine grid breaches a set threshold. Once activated, the SPC will be computed and applied per region, using each grid’s rolling average price.

Spot market prices in the Visayas and Mindanao jumped to record levels after many power plants in the regions shut down.