More plant outages strain Visayas grid as DOE races to stabilize supply

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The Visayas welcomed August with the same old problem: a strained and fragile power grid.

The region remains at risk of yellow—and possibly red alerts— this month as more power plants went offline, the Department of Energy (DOE) said.

The agency on Monday, August 3, confirmed that two of Cebu’s largest coal-fired power plants, the Toledo Power Corporation and Cebu Energy Development Corporation (CEDC), underwent forced outages.

READ MORE: Visayas power grid stays fragile as August begins

That’s why the Visayas grid faced a four-hour yellow alert on Monday as capacity remains strained.

”Kaya naka–yellow alert tayo (the reason we have a yellow alert) today, is because of those unplanned power outages just the other day,” said DOE Undersecretary Mario Marasigan during Monday’s presser.

Forced outages

According to DOE, the Toledo Power Corporation tripped last August 1, resulting in its unscheduled shutdown.

“It is expected to return by August 6,” Marasigan said.

Meanwhile, Unit 1 of CEDC underwent preventive maintenance earlier than scheduled, he added.

The power crunch being experienced in the Visayas lately has been attributed to forced outages of some of the largest generating facilities.

Based on available data from energy stakeholders, a total of 26 power plants in the Visayas have remained offline since 2021. Additionally, 16 other generators here are operating at derated (reduced) capacities.

The combined forced outages and derated capacity account for 1,055.8 megawatts (MW) of power unavailable to the Visayas grid, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) reported.

Solutions

On the other hand, the DOE assured consumers in the Visayas that measures have been undertaken to help re-stabilize the power grid as well as a system collapse.

These include a steady supply of power imported from Luzon and Mindanao and the deployment of battery energy storage systems (BESS).

In addition, around 50 megawatts (MW) of BESS to be deployed in the Visayas are already under testing and commissioning, and another 50 MW of power barge is set to be transferred to Cebu.

“DOE has (also) instructed NGCP to directly negotiate and contract ancillary services in the Visayas to stabilize the grid,” Marasigan added.

READ MORE: Visayas grid placed on August’s first Yellow Alert amid ongoing plant outages

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