Visayas: Red and yellow alerts are again issued for the Visayas and Mindanao grids on Wednesday as several power plants remain unavailable. The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines, in an advisory, said the red alert for the Visayas grid is between 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., while a yellow alert is up between 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.

According to Philippines News Agency, available capacity in the Visayas is expected to be around 2,153 megawatts (MW) while peak demand is projected to hit 2,394MW. The NGCP issues a yellow alert when a grid's operating margin is short against contingency requirements, while a red alert is issued when the supply is insufficient to meet both the demand and the grid's regulating requirements.

The Visayas grid currently faces limited supply as Units 1 and 2 of the Therma Visayas Inc. and Unit 1 of the Cebu Energy Development Corporation, both coal-fired, remain unavailable. Additionally, imports from Mindanao are reduced due to the projected rise in demand, the maintenance outage of Unit 2 of the coal-fired GNPower Kauswagan in Lanao del Norte, and the emergency shutdown of GNPK 1 due to a boiler tube leak.

The NGCP reported that six power plants in the Visayas are on forced outage just for this month alone, with more than 20 others not operating since as far back as 2021. Furthermore, 14 plants are operating at derated capacities, resulting in a total loss of around 931.5MW.

For the Mindanao grid, available capacity is approximately 2,779MW, while peak demand is forecast to reach 2,689MW. The NGCP noted that nine power plants are on forced outage for August alone, while 11 have been unavailable since as far back as 2024. Moreover, nine other power plants are operating at derated capacities, bringing the total loss to around 621.6MW.