Red alert raised in Luzon grid – NGCP
MANILA, Philippines — National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Luzon grid on red alert today, May 8, due to insufficient supply.
In a statement sent to reporters, NGCP said the red alert would last from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The yellow alert, meanwhile, will be from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
A red alert is raised when the power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand, causing power outages. Meanwhile, a yellow alert is issued when the operating margin is not enough to meet the transmission grid’s regulatory and contingency requirements.
Yellow alerts do not necessarily lead to power outages.
According to NGCP, available capacity in the Luzon grid is 12,186 megawatts (MW), but the recorded peak demand was 12,468 MW, or 282 MW higher than the available supply.
“Five power plants are on forced outage, while three others are running on derated capacities, for a total of 1,354 MW unavailable to the grid,” NGCP said.
READ: Meralco reports power interruption in some areas amid Luzon grid ‘red alert’
Both the NGCP and the Department of Energy (DOE) have yet to provide the list of plants that are on forced outage.
In January, the DOE projected 15 yellow alerts and no red alerts in the Luzon grid.
Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara later lowered the yellow alert projection to 10, citing a number of yellow alerts that did not occur in earlier months.
NGCP, the private firm operating and developing the government’s power grid, last year warned of thinning power supply, saying that demand in Luzon was expected to peak in 2023 at 13,125 MW.
In a statement, the Department of Energy (DOE) said the red and yellow alerts were raised due to the tripping of the Bolo-Masinloc 230-kilovolt Line 2.
Reduced generation supply in Luzon affected export to the Visayas grid, where a yellow alert was also raised from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday.
The DOE likewise ordered the NGCP to explain the power interruptions within 24 hours, “as the situation emanated from a transmission line.”
Power distributor Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) said the red alert affected 300,000 of its customers in Metro Manila, Rizal and Cavite provinces. Power in these areas was restored at 3:45 p.m., it said.
The company implemented manual load dropping, or rotating power interruptions, of up to two hours in parts of its franchise area “as instructed by NGCP and as part of our responsibility to manage the system.”
Meralco likewise advised Interruptible Load Program (ILP) participants to de-load from the national grid to help ease the supply situation.
ILP is a voluntary demand-side program that allows big-load customers to temporarily disconnect from the grid by using their own generators in cases of red alerts.
The program redirects de-loaded capacity from the grid to thousands of households to spare them from power interruptions. At present, Meralco’s total ILP capacity is 616 megawatts.
NGCP also suspended trading at the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market (WESM) in the Luzon grid following the red alert issuance in order to “shield the public from volatile prices that may arise from the unavailability of power plants.”
