Visayas grid faces red, yellow power alerts

The Visayas power grid in the Philippines was placed under both red and yellow alerts on Tuesday, October 27, 2026, as available electricity supply fell short of demand. The NGCP said the red alert would be in effect from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., with yellow alerts in the surrounding hours between mid‑afternoon and 9 p.m. These alerts signaled heightened risk of power interruptions for consumers across the region as reserves thinned and demand climbed.

At 7:30 a.m., available capacity in the Visayas grid stood at 2,452 megawatts (MW) against an estimated peak demand of 2,482 MW. As of 1:30 p.m., available capacity was 2,283 MW while peak demand was 2,435 MW. In both cases, demand either exceeded or closely matched supply, supporting the issuance of system alerts for the afternoon and evening periods.

The tight power situation was driven by a broad pattern of plant outages and reduced operating capacities. The grid operator reported that 30 power plants were on forced outage while 16 were running on derated capacities, resulting in a total of 861.2 MW being unavailable to the Visayas grid. This loss of capacity significantly narrowed the operating margin needed to comfortably meet peak demand and contingency requirements.

Among the most significant contributors to the shortfall were large coal-fired power plants in the Visayas that were unavailable. These included Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) 1, TVI 2 and KEPCO SPC Power Corporation (KSPC) Unit 1. The unavailability of these units removed substantial baseload generation from the system, adding pressure during periods of rising consumption.

The Visayas grid’s difficulties were compounded by constraints on power imports from Mindanao. The operator noted limited imports linked to planned outages of specific Mindanao plants, including GNPK 4 and TSI 2. These planned outages reduced the ability of Mindanao to supply additional power at a time when the Visayas grid was dealing with multiple local plant issues.

Mindanao was also experiencing rising demand, further restricting the surplus power available for transfer. As a result, the Visayas grid had to manage its shortfall largely with its own diminished resources, reinforcing the need for both red and yellow alert declarations on the same day.

A red alert status is issued when power supply is insufficient to meet consumer demand and the regulating requirement of the transmission grid. Under such conditions, the likelihood of rotational brownouts increases if consumption is not managed or if additional capacity does not come online. Red alerts therefore reflect an immediate and critical strain on the system.

A yellow alert is declared when the operating margin is insufficient to meet the grid’s contingency requirement, indicating that reserves are thin even if demand is still being met. In this state, any unexpected plant outage could quickly push the system into a more severe condition. The combination of yellow and red alerts on October 27 underscored the fragility of supply in the Visayas amid ongoing outages and constrained imports.