The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Visayas Grid under a yellow alert from 1 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday (August 5)because of increased demand and the unavailability of several power plants.
Yellow alert activates when the level of power reserve in the grid is low and power interruptions are not yet imminent.
NGCP indicated in a statement on Tuesday, as of 1:30 p.m., that the available capacity in the Visayas Grid was at 2,528 megawatts (MW) and peak demand, 2,475 MW.
NGCP said that 11 power plants have been on forced outage from April to August this year, and six other power plants have been idle since 2023, while six more are running on de-rated capacities. The total capacity of these plants was equivalent to 733.5 MW of unavailable power.
The company also emphasized that the yellow alert was only raised in the Visayas Grid and not in Luzon and Mindanao, as they were under normal conditions.
For this month, NGCP also raised yellow alerts in the Visayas Grid during the nights of August 1 and 4, but were immediately lifted.
The Department of Energy was sought for comment, but it didn’t respond.
However, the Philippines-based non-governmental organization, Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities (ICSC) highlighted in a separate statement on Tuesday, the issue of recurring unplanned power plant outages, particularly among base-load coal power plants.
ICSC emphasized that these plant shutdowns have been occurring despite the ongoing rainy season, when electricity demand is typically low.
“Coal plants are designed for steady and continuous operations as baseload plants. However, they are increasingly being forced to ramp up and down to meet variable demand in today’s grid operations, which accelerates wear and tear. This cycle can lead to more frequent breakdowns, higher maintenance costs, and declining reliability,” the group noted.
ICSC added that while other generation technologies, such as hydro and geothermal, also experience outages, the large capacity of individual coal-powered baseload units makes their failure more disruptive to the grid’s operations.
“A single unplanned outage of a baseload coal plant can remove a significant amount of supply from the grid. This impact is further aggravated when multiple outages occur simultaneously,” the group said.
