Manila: Continued outages in several major coal-fired power plants will keep the Visayas and Mindanao power grids under red and yellow alerts on Thursday, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said. The Visayas grid was placed under red alert from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m., with yellow alerts issued from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., the NGCP said in an advisory.

According to Philippines News Agency, available capacity is about 2,205 megawatts (MW), falling short of the projected peak demand of 2,460 MW. The NGCP attributed the capacity shortfall mainly to the unavailability of Units 1 and 2 of Therma Visayas, Inc. and Unit 3 of the Panay Energy Development Corp., as well as reduced power imports from the Mindanao grid.

Ten Visayas power plants have been on forced outage this month, while 22 others have been unavailable for the past five years. A total of 16 plants are operating at reduced capacity, resulting in a total capacity loss of about 979.9 MW.

In Mindanao, the grid will be under yellow alert from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Available capacity is estimated at 2,724 MW against a projected peak demand of 2,552 MW. The unavailability of Units 2 and 3 of GNPower Kauswagan is among the major factors behind the alert.

The NGCP said six Mindanao power plants have been on forced outage this month, while 16 others have been unavailable since 2024. Six plants are also operating at reduced capacity, resulting in a total capacity loss of about 671.1 MW.

A yellow alert is issued when a grid's operating margin falls below the required contingency level. A red alert means available capacity is insufficient to meet both consumer demand and the grid's regulating requirements.