NGCP extends Luzon Grid red alert

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) on Tuesday extended the red alert status of the Luzon Grid for another seven hours, due to the outage of two additional plants after it earlier reported 19 plants on forced outage.

In an advisory, the NGCP said the red alert status was extended from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. It was initially only scheduled to last from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m., indicating that a generation deficiency exists.

The firm earlier implemented manual load dropping at 4:15 p.m. on Tuesday, with rotational power interruptions affecting parts of northern Luzon, specifically in Baguio and Benguet, Ilocos Sur, Nueva Ecija, and Aurora.

In the same advisory, the NGCP said the yellow alert status has also been extended in the Visayas Grid, indicating that the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

The Department of Energy (DOE) earlier this month said the power sector is implementing measures to avoid possible power interruptions, as the country faces the El Niño phenomenon.—AOL, GMA Integrated News