Rotating brownouts hit Visayas on Thursday evening — NGCP

Electricity consumers across the Visayas should brace for rounds of power interruptions on Thursday afternoon to evening amid thin power supply caused by forced outage and derated capacities of several plants.

In an advisory, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said it is implementing manual load dropping (MLD) or rotational brownouts in the following areas from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.:

• VECO
• MECO
• CEBECO I
• CEBECO II
• CEBECO III
• NEPC
• NOCECO
• NORECO I
• NORECO II
• NONECO
• MORE
• AKELCO
• ANTECO
• CAPELCO
• ILECO I
• ILECO II
• ILECO III
• GUIMELCO

The grid operator said implementing rotational brownouts was necessary “to maintain the integrity of the power system.”

A yellow alert was raised over the Visayas grid from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. and was later extended until 9 p.m. due to the unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants TVI 1, TVI 2, and PEDC 3.

NGCP added that the MLD is being implemented to prevent the overloading of Daanbantayan-Tabango 230-kilovolt (kV) due to the unplanned outage of CENPRI Diesel, PDPP1 Unit 5, PDPP3, PGPP2 Unit 1 amounting to 74 megawatts.

“Schedule may be cancelled if system condition improves, such as if actual demand falls below projections,” it said.

“NGCP encourages everyone to exercise prudence in using electricity,” it added. — RSJ, GMA News