THE National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Visayas and Mindanao grids under red and yellow alerts on Wednesday, as widespread power plant outages reduced supply amid high demand.
A red alert is issued when the power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating reserve requirement.A yellow alert is raised when the available operating margin is insufficient to meet the grid’s contingency reserve requirement.In the Visayas, a red alert was raised from 1 to 10 p.m., followed by a yellow alert from 10 to 11 p.m. Peak demand was projected at 2,555 megawatts (MW), against an available capacity of only 2,124 MW.NGCP said 33 power plants in the region were on forced outage, while 13 others were operating at reduced capacity. The outages and deratings removed a combined 982.6 MW from the grid.In Mindanao, a red alert was scheduled from 2 to 4 p.m. and from 5 to 8 p.m.Yellow alerts were raised from noon to 2 p.m., 4 to 5 p.m. and 8 to 10 p.m.Mindanao’s peak demand was estimated at 2,591 MW, while available capacity stood at 2,641 MW.NGCP said 31 power plants in Mindanao were on forced outage and eight others were operating at reduced capacity, leaving 827.7 MW unavailable to the grid.
