Philippines power grids face alerts due to supply shortages

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) issued red and yellow alerts for the Visayas and Mindanao grids on August 10 due to insufficient electricity supply. The Visayas grid faced a red alert, signaling a high risk of rotational brownouts, while Mindanao also experienced red alert periods due to high demand and reduced power imports.

The instability is driven by several factors, including the unavailability of three major coal-fired units in the Visayas and limited power imports from Mindanao. The Mindanao link has been constrained by forced outages at South Energy Corp.’s SEC 2 unit and GNPower Kauswagan’s GNPK 1.

According to the NGCP, the grid is facing a persistent capacity shortfall. Outages and derated capacities have stripped approximately 909.8 MW from the grid, representing nearly 40 percent of the available capacity on Monday. The NGCP noted that several plants have been on forced outage for months, with some units having been out of service since as far back as 2021.