By Joann Villanueva | Philippine News Agency
The red alert status in the Luzon power grid remains in effect on Thursday, from 4:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m., and in the Visayas grid, from 4:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m., as the forced outage of several power-generating units lessens capacity amid a hike in demand.
The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) stated that available capacity in Luzon is approximately 12,479 megawatts (MW), while peak demand is expected to reach around 12,595MW.
In an advisory, the NGCP said, “17 plants are on forced outage since March 2026, three since 2025, two since 2024, and one plant out since 2019.”
About 14 plants are on derated capacities, bringing the total unavailable capacity for the grid to 4,242.5MW.
For the Visayas grid, available capacity is 2,413MW while peak demand is 2,541MW.
Around 11 plants have been on forced outage since last March, four since 2025, two since 2024, two since 2023, and one plant out since 2021, the NGCP said.
Power generating units running in a derated capacity totaled 12 to date, resulting in a total of 866.7MW loss for the grid.
A red alert status is issued when the power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the regulating requirements of the grid.
A yellow alert status, which is issued when operating margin is inadequate to meet the grid’s requirement, is also raised for Luzon from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. for the Visayas and 9:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. for the Visayas.
Affected customers
Meanwhile, the drop in Luzon and Visayas grids’ capacity on Wednesday resulted in rotating power outages in several areas.
The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) said it implemented manual loan dropping in several areas, which lasted around two to three hours.
It said around 920,000 customers in portions of Batangas, Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, and Rizal were affected as of 7:30 p.m.
“To lessen the strain on the grid, our big-load customers under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) have been helping ease demand through de-loading of around 240 MW total capacity,” it added.
Under ILP, customers with great demand but who have the capacity to provide for their requirements are requested to use their own sources to lessen demand from the grid.
