Visayas grid on Red, Yellow Alerts again on October 28

MANILA — The Visayas grid will be on Red and Yellow Alerts again on October 28, Wednesday, as several power plants in the region remain offline.

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

Red Alert
5 p.m. – 6 p.m. 

Yellow Alert
2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

The NGCP said available grid capacity is at 2,362 MW, while peak demand is expected to reach 2,548 MW. 

The agency said Visayas’ large coal plants, Thermo Visayas 1 and 2 and KEPCO SPC 1, are out.

Power imports from Mindanao are also limited because of the planned outages of GNPower Kauswagan 4 and Thermo South Inc. 2 power plants.

In Visayas, 10 plants have been out since October, while 2 plants have been out since September. Two plants have been out since August, and one plant has been out since June. Three plants have been out since May.

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.

DOE awaits battery storage for 3 months amid Visayas out

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 on 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 due to the shutdown of many power plants in the regions.