Visayas Grid Placed Under Yellow Alert on October 17 as Plant Outages Thin Reserves
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Visayas power grid under a yellow alert from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on October 17, as multiple power plant outages and maintenance work thinned reserves and raised the risk of interruptions. The grid was operating at a capacity of 2,511 megawatts, close to its peak demand of 2,362 megawatts, leaving limited margin for contingencies.
Contributing factors included the unavailability of major coal plants PEDC 3 and KSPC 1, planned maintenance on Line 2 of the Mindanao-Visayas interconnection, and multiple plants offline due to forced outages or running at reduced capacity — a total of 662.4 MW unavailable to the grid.
A yellow alert indicates that supply currently meets demand but the safety margin is insufficient, increasing the likelihood of rotational power interruptions. NGCP said the supply situation requires close monitoring during the period. (GSM, based on GMA News and Unique Times reporting)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 马尼拉湾夜景。Manila Bay at night. Photo by Ralff Nestor Nacor, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
