Manila: The continued forced outages of several major coal-fired power plants resulted in a sustained red alert in the Visayas grid on Tuesday due to low capacity relative to higher demand and the transmission grid's requirements.

According to Philippines News Agency, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issued an advisory stating that the red alert is in effect from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., while a yellow alert is in place from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. and from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. The grid's capacity is expected to be around 2,421 megawatts (MW), while peak demand is expected to reach 2,570 MW.

The supply constraints are primarily due to the unavailability of Units 1 and 2 of Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) and Unit 1 of Kepco SPC Power Corp. (KSPC). NGCP issues a yellow alert when capacity is insufficient to meet the transmission grid's contingency requirement, whereas a red alert is announced when capacity is insufficient to meet demand and the grid's regulating requirement.

Additionally, NGCP reported that aside from the unavailable generating units of TVI and KSPC, eight other plants have experienced forced outages this month, and 20 others have been offline since as far back as 2021. Furthermore, 13 other power plants are operating at derated capacity, resulting in a total grid loss of approximately 904.5 MW.

The red alert status in the Visayas grid has persisted for most of the week. Energy Department officials indicated that measures are being implemented to address the issue, including tasking the NGCP to install battery-powered facilities to enhance capacity.