The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) has placed the Visayas grid under yellow alert from 1pm to midnight today, October 1, following the forced shutdown of several power plants due to the 6.9-magnitude earthquake that struck Cebu on Tuesday.
As of 8:00 am on Wednesday, the grid recorded an available capacity of 1,888 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 1,839 megawatts.
NGCP said 27 plants tripped after the quake, stripping the grid of 1,444.1 MW, while 16 other facilities had already been offline before the incident.
One more plant continues to operate on derated capacity, bringing the total unavailable supply to 1,654.7 MW, it added.
Despite the tight supply, NGCP clarified that Luzon and Mindanao grids remain under normal condition.
A yellow alert is raised when the operating margin becomes insufficient to cover the grid’s contingency requirements, although this does not automatically mean rotating brownouts, NGCP said.*
Reymund Titong is a Filipino journalist steadily building his voice in the field of news reporting, driven by a commitment to tell meaningful and relevant stories.
He serves as a correspondent for Rappler, contributes to Negros Daily Bulletin, and maintains a blog on Medium.