Grid operator National Grid of the Corp. of the Philippines once again placed the Luzon grid on red alert status yesterday as a total of 3,963.3 megawatts of capacity became unavailable to the grid.
NGCP placed the Luzon grid on red alert from 2 pm to 4pm, 8pm to 10pm and yellow alert from 1pm to 2pm, 4pm to 5pm, 6pm to 8pm and 10pm to 11pm as available capacity reached 12,669 MW compared to peak demand of 12,228MW.
It said three plants have been on forced outage since 2023, three between January and March 2024, and 12 power plants between April and May 2024; while 10 are running on derated capacities.
It said several factors contributed to the raising of yellow alert, particularly: the forced outage of the following plants, namely Ilijan (600MW), Pagbilao 1 (382MW), 2 (382MW), & 3 (420MW), QPPL (460MW), emergency shutdown of San Lorenzo 50 (265MW), deration of the following plants (Sual 1, Sual 2, Limay 4, Limay 8) and high forecasted demand.
A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement while a yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.
For its part, Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has started coordinating with customers enrolled under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP) for their de-loading commitments to help ease the demand.
“The continued participation of our big-load customers proves to be very beneficial in managing the current supply situation. They collectively de-loaded around 300 MW yesterday, helping minimize rotational power interruptions despite the hours-long Red Alert that started at 1:00 p.m., ” Meralco spokesperson and corporate communications head Joe Zaldarriaga said.
Meralco said the supply deficiency on Monday prompted Meralco to implement manual load dropping (MLD) that lasted around 20 minutes to an hour starting 8:31 p.m., affecting around 100,000 customers in parts of Bulacan. All services were restored by 10:00 p.m.
“With the Luzon Grid still on Red Alert today, we are still ready to implement MLD if needed as part of our responsibility to manage the system,” Zaldarriaga said.
Zaldarriaga also encouraged the public to continue practicing energy efficiency to help in electricity demand-side management.
Meanwhile, Meralco continues to restore electricity service in areas hit by Typhoon Aghon.
As of 6:00 a.m. of May 28, affected customers are already down to 17,000 out of the more than 1.7 million who were hit by either momentary or sustained power interruptions.
Most of the affected customers are in Quezon, Laguna, while the rest are in parts of Batangas, Cavite, Metro Manila, Rizal, and Bulacan.
“Rest assured that our crews are working non-stop to restore service the soonest possible time,” Zaldarriaga said.
NGCP also declared the Visayas grid on yellow alert on Tuesday from 2pm to 4pm as available capacity reached 2,904MW versus peak demand of 2,532MW with 587.1MW unavailable to the grid.
The yellow alert is due to unavailability of Luzon to export to Visayas and high forecasted demand.
