Brownouts Threaten Visayas; Power Grid Still on Red Alert

● Power plants in the Visayas went offline, including one each in Cebu, Iloilo and Leyte.

The Visayas area still faces the threat of possible brownouts after the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said the Visayas power grid remains on red alert Wednesday.

The NGCP said on its 6 am update the Visayas grid has zero megawatt in reserves and its projected demand peak of 1,552 Megawatts is greater than the system capacity which is 1,534 Megawatts.

Energy Secretary Carlos Jericho Petilla earlier said that three power plants in the Visayas went offline, including one each in Cebu, Iloilo and Leyte. They are expecting that the three plants will be back on line this week, report said.

Reports, on the other hand, said the Luzon grid’s reserves were barely higher than the threshold for yellow alert, at 696 Megawatts. Luzon has a system capacity of 9,360 Megawatts for Wednesday, compared to a projected system peak of 8,664 Megawatts, the NGCP said.

A “yellow alert” according to NGCP is a system condition where the total reserve is less than the capacity of the largest plant online. For the Luzon grid, this is 647 Megawatts, report said.

Source: GMA News Online