Manila: The capacity of the Visayas and Mindanao grids remains below the contingency and regulating requirements, resulting in red and yellow alerts on Friday.

According to Philippines News Agency, the Visayas grid is on red alert from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on yellow alert from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., as per an advisory from the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP). Available capacity is estimated at 2,330 megawatts (MW) while peak demand is expected to reach 2,002 MW.

The low capacity is due to the unavailability of Units 1 and 2 of Therma Visayas, Inc. and Unit 2 of Panay Energy Development Corp., along with fewer imports from the Mindanao grid. The NGCP reported that nine power plants are unavailable this month, while 22 others have been on forced outage since 2021. Additionally, 14 other plants are operating on derated capacity, reducing capacity by 1,030.1 MW.

For Mindanao, a yellow alert is in effect from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m., primarily because of the unavailability of Units 2 and 3 of the coal-fired GNPower Kauswagan. The available capacity is at 2,652 MW, with peak demand projected to reach 2,545 MW. The NGCP noted that 17 power plants in Mindanao are not operating, 16 have been unavailable since 2024, and seven others are operating at derated capacity, accounting for a total of 859.8 MW.

A yellow alert is issued when a grid's operating margin is short of contingency requirements, while a red alert is issued when supply is insufficient to meet both demand and the grid's regulating requirement. Energy officials expect capacity in both grids to increase this month with the scheduled resumption of several power plants.