Philippines' Visayas and Mindanao grids face 9-hour red alerts Thursday

The Visayas and Mindanao power grids in the Philippines will be under red alert for nine hours on Thursday, Sept. 3, as available electricity supply is projected to fall below peak demand due to multiple plant outages. In the Visayas, red alert runs from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m., with available capacity at 2,187 megawatts against projected peak demand of 2,575 MW, a gap of about 388 MW. Forced outages and derated units have cut roughly 792 MW from the grid. Mindanao faces red alert from noon to 9 p.m., with 2,480 MW available versus 2,546 MW peak demand, a 66 MW shortfall. Total unavailable or reduced capacity there is about 841.6 MW. A red alert indicates insufficient capacity to cover demand and contingency reserves.