Visayas grid placed under red, yellow alerts on July 9, 2026 — NGCP

Electricity consumers in the Visayas might experience power interruptions on Thursday afternoon to evening due to insufficient power supply due to the tripping of several power plants.

In an advisory, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said the Visayas grid will be under red alert status from 5. p.m. to 7 p.m., following a yellow alert from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The islands cluster will be placed again under yellow alert from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The grid operator said the Visayas grid is currently operating at 2,561 megawatts (MW) capacity against a peak demand of 2,568 MW.

The NGCP cited the following factors that contributed to the red and yellow alert declaration:

• Unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants TVI 1 & 2
• Recent outage of PCPC (135 MW)
• High demand forecast

Moreover, it said 10 plants are on forced outage on July 2026, four plants since June, seven plants since May, one plant since March, three plants since 2025, three plants since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021, while 14 plants are running on derated capacities, for a total of 959.3 MW unavailable to the grid.

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

Widespread power interruptions or rotational brownouts are expected.

In this situation, electricity might be cut temporarily in certain areas on a scheduled basis to prevent the entire grid from collapsing.

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

While supply is still enough to meet current demand, it no longer reaches the required safety margin.

At this level, the possibility of rotational power interruptions increases. — VDV, GMA News