BREAKING – The Luzon transmission grid has been placed on red alert today, October 20, after unexpected shutdowns of several plants due to insufficient power supply.
According to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), the peak demand in the region has reached 9,051 megawatts (MW), which already is in a state of depletion with just 9,083-MW of available capacity, causing interruption in the distribution to the plants.
The red alert is placed from 11 AM to 3 PM, it announced on its Facebook page.
Of the plants, namely, Calaca 2, GNPower 2, Masinloc 1, Sual 2, and Pagbilao 1 have been lifted to red alert status. The total capacity combined of these plants is worth 1,960-MW.
Meanwhile, the San Gabriel and Pagbilao 2 power plants derated their supply to only 422-MW overall. (via ABS-CBN news reporter Alvin Elchico)
Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) has also lifted its operations to red alert at 1 PM today to perform “Manual Load Dropping” (power interruption) in some areas. (via ABS-CBN news reporter Alvin Elchico)
Earlier, Meralco announced on its Twitter page that some areas in the metro may be affected by a “Temporary System Imbalance” that could last 10 to 15 minutes.
Sta. Mesa and West Avenue in Quezon City, Malibay in Pasay, Carmona in Makati, Ilano in Caloocan, Tugatog in Malabon, Sta. Ana in Manila, as well as some towns in Antipolo and Bulacan, are some of the places affected by the massive outage.
UPDATE – As of 1:15 PM, the electricity distributor has not implemented MLD (Manual Load Dropping) as NGCP downgraded the earlier red status to yellow from 12:30 PM to 8 PM.
Power reserves remain at an all-time low, the grid operator said, from the peak demand of 9,051-MW, it has lowered down to 8,676-MW.
The grid was downgraded to the yellow alert after units Pagbilao 2 and San Gabriel said that their generation of power is no longer derated, DOE Usec William Fuentebella said in a press briefing.
Meralco said corporations and commercial establishments participating under the Interruptible Load Program (ILP), which includes Meralco’s enterprise customers (e.g. malls), are ready to use their generator sets to minimize further power inactivity.
Meralco also advised households in its franchise areas to conserve energy wisely to prevent unwanted outages.