The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) warned of potential rotating power outages in the Visayas region on Tuesday, June 2, as major coal-fired power plants remained offline, straining the region’s grid generation capacity.

The grid operator said manual load dropping, or rotational brownouts, may be enforced between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on June 2. The localized electricity deficits have placed the Cebu-Negros-Panay sub-grids—critical infrastructure that links the three major island provinces to facilitate cross-island energy sharing—under severe operational distress.

The Visayas grid was placed under a yellow alert until 9 p.m. after available power supply narrowed to 2,542 megawatts, leaving a thin margin over the peak demand forecast of 2,412 megawatts. A yellow alert indicates that the grid's operating margin is insufficient to meet contingency reserve requirements, though it does not automatically mean immediate blackouts.

NGCP noted that the scheduled power cuts could be averted if local system conditions improve before the evening peak.

Urban centers and industrial hubs are braced for brief power fluctuations. Franchise areas managed by major distribution utilities, including Visayan Electric Co., Mactan Electric Co., Negros Electric and Power Corp., MORE Electric and Power Corp., and Bohol Light Co. Inc., are braced for potential outages.

The power supply deficit is also expected to disrupt provincial areas serviced by rural electric cooperatives. Outage schedules have been prepared for Cebu I, II, and III Electric Cooperatives; Negros Occidental Electric Cooperative; Negros Oriental II Electric Cooperative; and Northern Negros Electric Cooperative. In the Western and Central Visayas regions, the contingency measures cover Aklan Electric Cooperative, Antique Electric Cooperative, Capiz Electric Cooperative, Iloilo I, II, and III Electric Cooperatives, as well as Bohol I and II Electric Cooperatives.