Manila: The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines has placed the Visayas grid on yellow alert from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday due to a low operating margin triggered by an increase in demand.

According to Philippines News Agency, the grid's available capacity is approximately 2,578 megawatts (MW), while the peak demand is around 2,535 MW. A yellow alert is issued when a grid's operating margin is insufficient to meet the contingency requirement. This alert comes amidst challenging conditions, as 10 power plants in the Visayas are already on forced outage, with one plant having been non-operational since 2021.

Additionally, 16 power plant units are operating at derated capacity, resulting in a total unavailable capacity of approximately 482.41 MW for the grid. The yellow alert was further influenced by a 36 MW uptick in demand within the Visayas grid on Thursday morning. Other contributing factors include the unavailability of the 103 MW coal-fired power plant unit 2 of the Cebu-based KEPCO SPC Power Corporation (KSPC), and a 49 MW increase in demand in the Mindanao grid, which reduced the capacity being transferred to the Visayas through the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) by 207 MW.

NGCP noted that the Agus 6 Hydroelectric Power is also operating at a derated capacity of 66.5 MW, down from 101 MW the previous day. The specific reasons for this reduction were not provided. Despite the situation in the Visayas, NGCP assured that both the Luzon and Mindanao grids remain in normal condition.