Yellow alert raised over Visayas grid

THE Visayas grid was briefly placed on yellow alert following outages at several power plants, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said.

In an advisory, the NGCP said the yellow alert period was between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m., though it had been lifted as of 1 p.m.

A yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

Peak demand was estimated at 2,535 megawatts (MW) on available capacity of 2,578 MW.

A total of 482.41 MW was unavailable to the grid after 13 power plants went on forced outage while 16 were running on derated capacity.

Other contributing factors were the increase in demand in Mindanao, limiting the power exported to Visayas via Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project.

The Luzon and Mindanao grids are operating normally, the NGCP said. — Sheldeen Joy Talavera