Visayas grid back under yellow alert as plant outages persist

The Visayas grid will be placed under yellow alert status once again for seven hours starting Friday afternoon, due to the continued unavailability of major coal plans and the high demand forecast, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said.

The yellow alert status—indicating that the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement—will be in place from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday, June 26.

The grid's available capacity was recorded at 2,523 megwatts (MW) versus a peak demand of 2,405 MW, as a total of 1,011.5 MW remain unavailable to the grid.

The NGCP attributed the declaration to the continued outage of Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) 1, TVI 2, and Panay Energy Development Corp. (PEDC) unit 2.

Thirteen plans are on forced outage this month, eight since May 2026, one since March 2026, three since 2025, two since 2024, two since 2024, and one since 2021. Meanwhile, 16 are on running derated capacities.

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin last month already ordered the immediate restoration of the three power plants, and instructed the Visayas Field Office to inspect and coordinate with the concerned generation companies to ensure that they are back online "safely and promptly."

The Department of Energy (DOE) said that while there is no direct correlation between the declaration of yellow and red alerts on electricity rates, the thin power supply forced the use of more expensive diesel power plants, which could slightly raise power costs. — VDV, GMA News