Red alert hoisted over Visayas grid on Aug. 19, 2026

Consumers in the Visayas should brace for possible power interruptions on Wednesday evening due to insufficient power supply and thin reserves amid the unavailability of several power plants.

In an advisory, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said a red alert is in effect over the Visayas grid from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m., following a yellow alert raised from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The red alert status will be followed by another yellow alert declaration hoisted from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The NGCP said the Visayas grid is currently operating at 2,481 megawatts (MW) capacity against a peak demand of 2,481 MW.

The grid operator cited the following factors that contributed to the red and yellow alert declaration in the Visayas grid:

Unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants TVI 1 and TVI 2

Limited power import from Mindanao (primarily due to the outages of coal plants and high system demand of Mindanao)

• Increase in forecasted demand at 7 p.m. by 53MW
• Outage of PB101 U2 (5.6 MW) and PB101 U4 (5.6 MW)

Moreover, the NGCP said 11 plants are on forced outage in 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, while 12 plants are running on derated capacities, “for a total of 819.6 MW unavailable to the grid.”

A red alert status is issued when the 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.

Meanwhile, a yellow alert 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. —RF, GMA News