Visayas grid under yellow alert on September 27, 2026 —NGCP

Power outages may occur as the Visayas grid will be placed under yellow alert for four hours on Sunday, September 27, due to the unavailability of some coal plants, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said.

In an advisory, the NGCP said the yellow alert declaration will take effect from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The grid currently has an available capacity of 2,519 megawatts (MW), while the peak demand is 2,342 MW.

The yellow alert status declaration is due to the unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants: Panay Energy Development Corporation Unit 3, KEPCO SPC Power Corporation Unit 2, and Therma Visayas Inc. Unit 1. The said plants were shut down at 4:34 a.m.

There’s also a deration in Leyte due to tripping of several units, the NGCP said.

Meanwhile, 10 plants are on forced outage in September, three plants since August, two plants since June, six plants since May, three plants since 2025, two plants since 2024, two plants since 2023, and one plant since 2021. There are also 17 plants running on derated capacities, for a total of 974.4MW unavailable to the grid.

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

To address the thinning energy reserves in the Visayas grid, the Department of Energy (DOE) earlier ordered the NGCP to install over 250 megawatts of battery energy storage system.

The DOE is also mulling to tap liquid fuel facilities to help power up the grid. —KG, GMA News