Visayas grid placed under red, yellow alerts anew on Aug. 27, 2026

Electricity customers in the Visayas might experience power interruptions as red and yellow alerts are hoisted over the islands group on Thursday afternoon to evening.

In an advisory, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said the grid is placed under red alert from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., following a yellow alert from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Another yellow alert will immediately proceed at 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Visayas grid is operating at a deficiency with available capacity of 2,344 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 2,452 MW.

The insufficient supply which resulted in the hoisting of red and yellow alerts were caused by the following factors:

• Unavailability of Visayas' large coal plants TVI 1, TVI 2 and KSPC 1
• Limited power import from Mindanao

Moreover, the NGCP said nine plants are on forced outage since 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 16 plants are running on derated capacities, “for a total of 916.2MW unavailable to the grid.”

A red alert status is issued when 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. —VAL, GMA News