Visayas grid to be placed on yellow alert on Aug. 16, 2026

The Visayas grid will be placed on yellow alert on Sunday afternoon, August 16, 2026, until evening due to thin reserves as some power plants are unavailable, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said.

In an advisory, the NGCP said the yellow alert will be implemented from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The NGCP said that the grid only has an available capacity of 2,525 megawatts despite a peak demand of 2,480 megawatts.

It noted that among the factors for the declaration of yellow alert on the grid include unavailability of two large coal plants in the Visayas. There was also a limited power import from Mindanao.

The high demand forecast also contributed to the declaration, the NGCP said.

The grid operator also explained that seven power plants are on forced outage on August 2026, one plant since July, three plants since June, seven plants since May, one plant since March, three plants since 2025, two plants since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021.

It added that 14 plants are also running on derated capacities resulting to a total of 892.6 megawatts unavailable to the Visayas grid.

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

The Department of Energy, on the other hand, said that it is coordinating with concerned agencies and generation companies to hasten the restoration of the affected facilities. —KG, GMA News