Cebu: A yellow alert status has been raised over the Visayas grid from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday due to a low operating margin partly caused by the forced outage of 11 power plants. A yellow alert is declared when the available power supply has a limited margin compared to the demand.

According to Philippines News Agency, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) reported that the available capacity in the Visayas as of 1:30 p.m. is 2,528 megawatts (MW), while the peak demand is expected to reach around 2,475 MW. This indicates a tight balance between supply and demand, necessitating the yellow alert status.

In addition to the forced outage of 11 power plants since April this year, NGCP stated that six other power plants have not been operational since the beginning of 2023. Furthermore, eight additional power plants are running at derated capacities, resulting in a total of 744 MW unavailable to the grid.