Yellow alert risks raised but enough power supply assured for Oct polls
Rowena Guevara
The Department of Energy (DOE) expects three yellow alerts in the Luzon grid for the remainder of the year, citing the El Niño weather phenomenon that will affect power generation in hydroelectric facilities.
Energy Undersecretary Rowena Guevara said two yellow alerts were expected in the power-hungry island group in October, while another was projected to be raised in November.
Yellow alerts are issued when the operating reserve is not enough to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirements, but these do not usually result in power outages.
Guevara assured consumers, however, that there would be adequate electricity supply during the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections on Oct. 30.
Both the Visayas and Mindanao grids, meanwhile, are not expected to experience any alerts for the rest of the year due mainly to the Mindanao-Visayas Interconnection Project (MVIP) that became operational earlier this year.
The P52-billion MVIP connected the Mindanao grid to the Visayas transmission network in May, finally allowing supply from generation plants anywhere in the country to be distributed across the three main island groups.
But Guevara also warned generation in hydroelectric power plants may decline by up to 75 percent in December also due to El Niño, which is characterized by drier than normal conditions.
The Luzon grid was last placed under yellow alert on July 11 when the San Lorenzo natural gas power plant in Batangas province tripped.
National Grid Corp. of the Philippines, the sole operator of the country’s transmission grid, had said available capacity stood at 12,705 megawatts (MW) while peak demand was at 12,222 MW.
This affected around half a million power consumers in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.
