Luzon grid under yellow alert on Wednesday afternoon

A yellow alert has been hoisted over the Luzon power grid due to tripping of several power plants causing power reserves to become thin.

In its power situation advisory on Wednesday, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) said the Luzon grid will be under yellow alert from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The NGCP raises yellow alerts when the operating margin falls below the necessary level to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement but does not necessarily lead to brownouts.

In particular, Luzon grid has an available capacity of 12,969 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 11,768 MW.

The NGCP cited the following factors that contributed to the raising of yellow alert: 

• Sual U2 tripped at 7:41 a.m.  due to possible boiler tube leak
• GNPD U2 will start to ramp down at 11 a.m. and target emergency shutdown at 1 p.m., due to boiler tube leak

Moreover, the grid operator said seven plants have been on forced outage since January to May 2024, and 10 power plants between June and July 2024; while five are running on derated capacities “for a total of 3,017.9 MW unavailable to the grid.”

Meanwhile, the Visayas and Mindanao grids are under normal condition. —KBK, GMA Integrated News