Visayas grid ends August with another red alert
CEBU CITY, Philippines – Consumers in Metro Cebu should expect another wave of rolling brownouts on Monday, Aug. 31, as the Visayas grid faces another red alert.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) declared red alert for the grid on Monday, spanning six hours from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.
It is the 13th red alert recorded for the Visayas grid this August.
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A yellow alert follows from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m, according to NGCP’s latest advisory.
Available capacity stood at 2,059 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 2,305MW, a deficit of 246MW during the red alert window, grid operators added.
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The system operator attributed the alert declarations to the continued unavailability of some of the largest coal-fired plants in the Visayas and reduced imports from Mindanao.
NGCP data also showed nine power plants went on forced outage in August alone, on top of outages carried over from earlier months and years.
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An additional 18 plants were running at derated, or reduced, capacities. In total, NGCP said 981.9MW of capacity was unavailable to the grid.
A red alert is declared when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement, the reserve needed to keep frequency stable.
Meanwhile, a yellow alert means that the operating margin is inadequate to cover the grid’s contingency requirement, the buffer needed in case a plant or line unexpectedly trips.
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