Visayas grid under red lert; rotational brownouts hit parts of Cebu

Local

PARTS of the Visayas experienced power supply constraints on Wednesday, July 8, after the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) raised the Visayas Grid to Red Alert, prompting rotational brownouts in portions of Cebu.

In its latest advisory issued at 2:50 p.m., NGCP placed the grid under Red Alert from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., with Yellow Alert in effect from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. and again from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m.

The grid's available capacity dropped to 2,397 megawatts (MW), lower than the projected peak demand of 2,492 MW.

NGCP said the Red Alert was triggered by the tripping of the Iloilo–PEDC 138-kV Line 3 at 1:32 p.m., which isolated PEDC Unit 3, followed by the emergency shutdown of the Panay Coal-fired Power Plant (PCPC) at 2:06 p.m. due to a suspected boiler tube leak.

The grid operator also reported that 10 power plants remain on forced outage this month, while 14 generating units are operating at reduced capacity, leaving a total of 1,092.8 MW unavailable.

As a result of the limited generation in the Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) sub-grids, rotational brownouts were implemented from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in portions of Consolacion and Liloan.

According to a separate advisory from Visayan Electric, affected areas include the barangays of Lataban, Poblacion, San Roque, San Vicente, Sta. Cruz, Tabla, and Yati in Liloan, and Cabangahan, Cansaga, Casili, Cubacub, Danglag, Garing, Panoypoy, Poblacion Occidental, Poblacion Oriental, Polog, Pulpogan, Pulpugan, Sacsac, Tilhaong, and Tolo-Tolo in Consolacion.

Earlier in the day, NGCP had placed the Visayas Grid under Yellow Alert after several major generating units, including Therma Visayas Units 1 and 2, became unavailable, while PCPC was operating at reduced capacity.

A Red Alert indicates that power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the grid's operating requirements, while a Yellow Alert signals that reserve power has fallen below the required contingency level.(MyTVCebu)