MANILA, Philippines—The government has tapped natural gas, oil, and coal-fired plants after three big producers suffered outages, triggering a yellow alert across the Luzon grid.
Energy Secretary Sharon Garin directed the joint venture of San Miguel Global Power Holdings Corp., Aboitiz Power Corp. and Meralco PowerGen Corp. to immediately restore affected generation units.
Garin issued the order following the tripping of several units on Thursday, including Ilijan Blocks A and B and three units of Excellent Energy Resources Inc. Both facilities are operated by LNGPH, a consortium comprising San Miguel Global Power, Meralco PowerGen Corp., and AboitizPower.
The technical failures prompted the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) to issue the first yellow alert of the year for the Luzon grid and the second for the Visayas grid, signaling that thin power reserves had fallen below a required safety margin.
To mitigate the shortfall, the Department of Energy (DOE) mobilized major generation players including San Miguel Corp., Global Power Holdings Inc., Aboitiz Power Corp., PHINMA Energy, and ACEN Corp. to bolster supply.
“At the onset of the Ilijan and EERI tripping, oil plants providing ancillary services were immediately dispatched to stabilize the grid frequency,” the office of Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevarra said on April 17.
“Starting 3 p.m., oil-based Bauang plants, First Gen’s natural gas plants (Sta. Rita, San Gabriel and Avion), coal-fired power plants (GNPD, Pagbilao and OPPL) generation were increased to fulfill the demand,” the DOE said.
The natural gas plants are now operated by Prime CoreGen, a subsidiary of Prime Infrastructure Capital Inc. (Prime Infra), following its acquisition of a majority stake in the plants from First Gen in 2025.
Prime CoreGen’s power facilities—the 1,000-MW Sta. Rita, 450-MW San Gabriel and 97-MW Avion—operated at about 95 percent generating capacity.
The DOE also instructed the NGCP, generation companies, and system operators to expedite the return of affected units, stabilize supply and prevent further impacts on consumers.
The NGCP reported on Thursday that 35 plants were on forced outage and 14 were operating at derated capacity, leaving a total of 5,137.2 MW unavailable.
In an advisory Thursday, the NGCP placed the Luzon grid under a yellow alert from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. after electricity demand rose to 11,966 megawatts against an available capacity of 12,223 MW.
The yellow alert was raised following the tripping of two major gas plants in Batangas, as well as the unavailability of hydroelectric power plants in Magat, Isabela.
Meanwhile, Meralco said it has restored power following a brief system imbalance caused by an unexpected plant outage that lasted around 10 to 15 minutes on Thursday afternoon.
A yellow alert was also issued for the Visayas grid from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., driven by the insufficient power being imported from Luzon.
During the period, the grid’s available capacity stood at 2,597 MW, which was only slightly higher than the demand of 2,368 MW.
