Luzon grid on red alert anew amid supply crunch

MANILA, Philippines — The Luzon grid remained on red alert yesterday as power supply dropped to below total demand due to outages and derated capacities of power plants.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) raised the red alert from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m.

In its advisory as of 2 p.m. yesterday, the grid was on yellow alert from noon to 2 p.m., 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to midnight.

The NGCP said the grid’s total available capacity was estimated at 13,277 megawatts while its peak demand was at 12,896 MW.

The power transmission operator said 18 power plants were on forced outage yesterday while 10 others were running on derated capacities.

Almost 4,000 MW were unavailable to the Luzon grid, according to the NGCP.

The Luzon grid was also on red alert on Monday as available supply was insufficient to meet the projected consumer demand.

The Visayas grid was on yellow alert from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. yesterday.

A yellow alert indicates that a grid’s operating power supply margin is insufficient to meet its contingency requirement.

The total available capacity in the Visayas grid stood at 2,885 MW while its peak demand was at 2,527 MW.

Power outage

Meanwhile, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said around 100,000 residents were affected by power interruption due to supply deficiency.

The power utility firm said the affected areas were Quezon, Laguna, Batangas, Cavite, Metro Manila, Rizal and Bulacan.

Meralco said it implemented a manual load dropping on Monday that lasted for 20 minutes to an hour.

It said power restoration in areas hit by Typhoon Aghon is ongoing.

As of 6 a.m. yesterday, Meralco said only 17,000 residents of the 1.7 million affected either by momentary or sustained power interruptions due to the weather disturbance remained without electricity.