The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) announced that it has 10,260 megawatts (MW) of available transmission capacity, with a significant portion allocated to Luzon.
Specifically, NGCP said Luzon has approximately 6,573 MW, Visayas has 2,281 MW, and Mindanao has 1,406 MW.
With the approaching summer season, NGCP Spokesperson Cynthia Alabanza told reporters that the grid corporation is proactively planning to mitigate potential power strains during the coming months.
We need to prepare for the worst case. The worst case is we will see red and yellow alerts within the year,” she said. ““When will they happen and at to what extent or severity of these alerts are, we cannot say because that’s a discussion between us and the Department of Energy (DOE).”
Earlier in March, the Luzon grid was placed under a yellow alert from 5 PM to 7 PM on March 5, marking the first such occurrence of the year and preceding the anticipated summer peak. While Luzon’s power supply was sufficient at the time, the yellow alert served as a precautionary measure against potential power fluctuations or brownouts in the event of power plant failures.
“We’re still in the process of assessing and adjusting. We saw the spike in temperature [last March 5]… We had a meeting with the DOE and their emphasis was, that it has to be an industry-wide effort, which is why we will be meeting with the generators within the next week or so,” Alabanza explained.
Alabanza emphasized that NGCP does not have jurisdiction over power generation, stating, “The readiness of the NGCP on these matters is to make sure that the [transmission] lines will not go down simultaneously.”
She further elaborated that to prepare for the anticipated surge in demand and potential power strains, NGCP is optimizing its operations and maintenance (O&M) and enhancing its service response efficiency.
“The system operations have a plan as to where to divert potential transmission failures somewhere in the grid. So, there are many ways that NGCP can manage problems on the transmission side,” she added.