NGCP raises Visayas grid’s alert status to red

The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) raised the power grid alert status in the Visayas on Friday due to expected higher demand.

In an advisory, the NGCP said the Visayas grid was placed under red alert from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m.

The grid operator earlier placed the Visayas grid under yellow alert at 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.

“The Visayas grid was upgraded to red alert status due to higher forecasted demand in Visayas and Mindanao, resulting in less power shared by Mindanao through the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection,” the NGCP said.

A red alert status is issued when the power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement.

A yellow alert, meanwhile, is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

A yellow alert status will also be hoisted over the Visayas grid from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Visayas grid has an available capacity of 2,484 megawatts (MW) against an expected peak demand of 2,504 MW.

“Eighteen power plants are on forced outages, while 10 others are running on derated capacities, for a total of 757.7 MW unavailable to the grid,” the NGCP said. — VBL, GMA Integrated News