Yellow Alert declared over Visayas grid as outages linger

CEBU CITY, Philippines — The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Visayas grid under a yellow alert once again on Thursday, August 6.

The yellow alert covers the peak hours between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Available capacity stood at 2,478 megawatts (MW) against a peak demand of 2,291MW during the alert window, NGCP said in its 8 a.m. advisory.

READ MORE: Red alert up on Visayas grid, brownouts expected in Cebu

Several of the Visayas’ largest coal-fired plants remain unavailable, five of which recently went offline due to emergency shutdowns and became isolated when the Daanbantayan transmission lines tripped.

A yellow alert is declared when the operating margin is not enough to cover the grid’s contingency requirement. This means a single unexpected plant trip or major disturbance could push the system toward supply shortages, though rotating outages are not yet necessary at that stage.

The advisory painted a picture of a grid strained not just by a single incident but by a backlog of unresolved plant problems spanning years.

NGCP’s breakdown showed:

  • 4 plants on forced outage since August
  • 3 plants since July
  • 3 plants since June
  • 7 plants since May
  • 1 plant since March
  • 3 plants since 2025
  • 2 plants since 2024
  • 2 plants since 2023
  • 1 plant since 2021

That amounts to 26 plants on forced outage, on top of 13 more running at derated, or reduced, capacities, for a combined 1,036.6MW stripped from the grid’s available supply.

Recurring pattern

Thursday’s yellow alert adds to a string of similar declarations NGCP has issued for the Visayas grid in recent weeks. Aging coal units and other baseload plants have gone offline or operated below capacity even as demand has climbed.

NGCP continues to call on power plants to promptly declare and address unplanned outages and derating. It has also urged consumers to practice energy conservation measures during alert periods.

READ MORE: Possible August power bill hike looms in Metro Cebu

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