THE National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on Tuesday placed the Visayas power grid on red alert from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. and yellow alert from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. and from 8:00 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Since the start of the year, the yellow alert has been raised 86 times while the red alert was raised 21 times for the Visayas power grid.
A red alert is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement.
A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.
Available capacity at the Visayas stood at 2,412 megawatts (MW) while peak demand reached 2,570 MW.
There are 10 power plants are on forced outage this month, one plant since July, three plants since June, seven plants since May, one plant since March, three plants since 2025, two plants since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021, while 13 plants are running on derated capacities, for a total of 904.5 MW unavailable to the grid.
‘The Visayas grid continues to experience tight supply conditions. From our coordination with the industry, we expect major power plants to return to service soon,’ said Energy Secretary Sharon Garin.
TVI Unit 2 (169MW) and Kepco SPC Power Corp. (105MW) are expected to return to service within the week, followed by TVI Unit 1 (169MW) and Cebu Energy Development Corp. Unit 1 (135MW) in the coming weeks of September, providing additional capacity.
Garin said the Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) will help reduce red and yellow alerts in Visayas. ‘We also have mandated the NGCP to install about 250 megawatts of batteries… We have instructed them to connect the four power plants of batteries located in Iloilo, Negros, Cebu, and Leyte so that everything is balanced… at the minimum, 50 percent less yellow and red alerts will be in the Visayas,’ she said.
These BESS are located in Leyte, Cebu, Panay, and Negros.
‘We could easily address, reduce the yellow and red alerts by installing battery energy storage system. But, in the meantime, we are continuously studying if our alert levels will continue then we have to commission as well the liquid fuels that can be easily deployed,’ Energy Undersecretary Mario Marasigan said.
At the same time, the agency is closely monitoring the developments of committed new power projects in the country.
‘We have 48 projects that are already completed, including 11 BESS with a capacity of 1,846MW… as far as what is the closest we can complete, we are looking at the 25 major power projects which we are closely monitoring. In the end, we are still looking at 10,000 MW by end of 2030,’ added Marasigan.