Amidst the country’s hottest month of the year, widespread power cuts disrupted millions of residents on Friday as the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) placed the Luzon and Visayas grids under red and yellow alerts.
The critical generation deficit forced Manila Electric Company (Meralco) to implement rotating power interruptions, or manual load dropping (MLD), across several provinces to manage the system.
”As of 6:00 PM, more than 540,000 customers in parts of Bulacan, Cavite, Laguna, Metro Manila, Quezon and Rizal have been affected.”
The utility company stated that the rotating blackouts lasted approximately three hours in some areas. To mitigate further outages, Meralco tapped its Interruptible Load Program (ILP), securing close to 300 MW of collective de-loading capacity from corporate partners.
”We continue to closely monitor the situation and remain committed to managing the system.”
According to the NGCP, the grid strain stems from prolonged power plant outages. In Luzon alone, 17 plants have been on forced outage since May.
Additionally, one plant has been offline since April, three since March, one since February, and three since January, crippling the grid’s overall capacity.
A yellow alert indicates that power generation falls short of the grid’s contingency reserve, while a red alert signals that supply cannot meet consumer demand, making rolling power outages unavoidable.