Luzon Grid under red, yellow alerts Monday afternoon

The Luzon Grid will be placed under red alert for six hours on Monday afternoon and yellow alert another four hours during the day, as over 20 power plants remain either on forced outage or are running on derated capacities.

In an advisory, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) said the Luzon Grid will be under red alert from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Monday, May 27, 2024, indicating that the power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement.

The grid will also be under yellow alert from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., and from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. the same day, which indicates that the operating margin is insufficient to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement.

This comes as the grid was reported to have an available capacity of 12,326 megawatts, versus a peak demand of 11,455 megawatts, with 4,497.3 megawatts unavailable to the grid.

Three plants have been on forced outage since 2023, two between January and March 2024, and 15 between April and May, while three are running on derated capacities.

Among the factors the contributed to the raising of alerts is the forced outage of the Ilijan, Pagbilao 1, 2, and 3, and SBPL power plants due to Typhoon Aghon (international name: Ewiniar), which continues to move north-northeast over part of Northern Luzon.

The NGCP also cited the forced outage of Masinloc 3 due to boiler feed water trouble, and that of QPPL due to the broken spring support of turbine combine reheat value, and the deration of Sual 1, Calaca 2, and Masinloc 1.

For its part, the Manila Electric Company (Meralco) said it has already advised customers enrolled in the interruptible load program (ILP) for their de-loading commitments, and that it is prepared to implement rotational brownouts.

“If necessary, we are ready to implement manual load dropping (MLD) or rotational power interruptions as part of our responsibility to manage the system,” Meralco spokesperson and head of corporate communications Joe Zaldarriaga said in a separate statement.

“We are monitoring the situation and will provide updates as needed,” he added.

The state weather bureau PAGASA has raised tropical cyclone wind signal (TCWS) 2 over the southeastern portion of Isabela and the northern portion of Aurora, and the TCWS 1 over areas in several other areas. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News