Luzon grid on yellow, red alerts anew

MANILA, Philippines — The Luzon grid was placed on red alert from 1 p.m. yesterday until midnight today due to forced outage of several power plants.

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said the grid was under yellow alert from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. yesterday.

The NGCP said available capacity in the Luzon grid was at 12,706 megawatts while peak demand was at 11,995 MW.

A red alert is raised when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the grid’s regulating requirement.

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

“The raising of red and yellow alerts was due to the outage of Ilijan Block A & B at 1,200 MW,” the NGCP said.

Two power plants have been on forced outage since last year, three from January to March, 13 in April and May while eight others are running on derated capacities. A total of 3,482.3 MW were unavailable to the grid.

The NGCP said the Visayas and Mindanao grids remain under normal condition.

Meralco warns of power outages

As this developed, the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) warned its customers of up to two hours of rotational power interruptions.

“We requested our commercial and industrial customers to de-load to lessen the strain on the power grid,” Joe Zaldarriaga, Meralco spokesman and head of corporate communications, said.

Meralco said more than 200 MW of de-loading capacity under the interruptible load program have been secured as of 2 p.m. yesterday.

“Given the challenging situation, we again urge the public to continue energy conservation and efficiency measures,” Zaldarriaga said.

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