MANILA – Due to the unexpected shutdown of a number of power plants, the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) has placed the Luzon grid under a state of yellow alert from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday.

A yellow alert means energy reserves go down by about 150 megawatts (MW) out of the 650 MW required by the grid.

In an advisory, the NGCP said available capacity is at 9,894 MW while peaking demand is expected to go as high as 9,310 MW.

yellow alert” (thinning of reserves) in the Luzon Grid.

Based on the advisory, the plants on unplanned outage are San Gabriel – 450MW; Ilijan B (3 units)– 600MW; Makban 5 – 55MW; and Sual 2 – 647MW.

Meanwhile, the plants on planned outage are Kalayaan 3 – 180MW; Kalayaan 4 – 180 MW; and San Lorenzo 1 – 265MW/

MERALCO, for its part, is in close coordination with its customers who have enlisted in the interruptible load program.