Visayas grid to be placed under yellow alert for 3 hours on Monday, July 13, 2026

The Visayas grid will be placed under yellow alert status anew for three hours starting Monday afternoon (July 13, 2026), due to an increase in the demand forecast as major coal plants in the region remain unavailable.

According to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), the Visayas grid will be on yellow alert — indicating that the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement — from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday, July 13, 2026.

Based on the NGCP’s 2 p.m. update, the grid was reported to have an available capacity of 2,602 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 2,376 MW, as 940.6 MW remain unavailable to the grid.

This comes amid the unavailability of coal plants Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) units 1 and 2, and the recent outage of Palm Conception Power Corp. (PCPC) which supplies 135 MW.

Energy Secretary Sharon Garin already earlier ordered the immediate restoration of major power plants in the region, 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. —KG, GMA News