NGCP Urges Stricter Monitoring Amid Demand Surge, Plant Outages

The National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP) is calling on energy stakeholders to closely monitor and ensure power availability in the coming months following a surge in demand due to extreme heat and unplanned outages of critical power plants.

As of March 10, the highest peak demand for the year was recorded on March 6 at 12,467 megawatts (MW), a 5% increase from the Department of Energy’s (DOE) approved forecast of 11,870 MW for that day.

The DOE projected Luzon’s peak demand for 2025 to reach 14,769 MW by mid-May, a 5.37% rise from the 2024 peak of 14,016 MW recorded on April 24.

On March 5, hot weather triggered a spike in demand, but the unavailability of GNPD1 (668 MW) and 11 other plants, totaling 1,639.3 MW, along with the deration—or reduced output—of 16 critical power plants, led to a yellow alert from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Unplanned outages and deration made 3,362.3 MW unavailable.

NGCP’s rapid grid stability assessment, optimization of remaining available power, and continuous real-time monitoring with affected plants prevented the situation from escalating to a red alert. The yellow alert was lifted at 7:49 p.m.

A yellow alert is issued when the power supply is insufficient to meet the grid’s contingency reserve requirement. A red alert is declared when the available supply cannot meet consumer demand and contingency needs.

“As in past years, NGCP cautions the public that while power supply appears sufficient on paper, unplanned outages of critical plants remain a major factor in power interruptions,” NGCP said.

The company noted that while it has complied with DOE directives on ancillary services (AS) procurement through a competitive selection process (CSP) and the AS Reserve Market (AS RM), unplanned outages force all dispatched power to be consumed, depleting contingency reserves.

“If a shortfall occurs, it means all available generators are already running, including those contracted for ancillary services, yet supply remains insufficient to meet demand,” NGCP stated.

The Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP) is responsible for the procurement and scheduling of ancillary services through the AS RM.

NGCP reiterated the need for additional, non-intermittent baseload power sources to ensure supply stability. As the grid operator and transmission service provider, NGCP can only report on supply and demand conditions and dispatch available power. The Electric Power Industry Reform Act (Republic Act 9511) prohibits NGCP from owning or operating power generation facilities.

To help prevent power shortages, NGCP urged the public to use electricity prudently.