The Visayas power grid has been placed under red alert status this afternoon, to last until 9:00 in the evening, said the Department of Energy (DOE) on Wednesday.

Prior to 3:00 p.m., the Visayas grid was under yellow alert, to resume at 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. later, reported RH 15 Jecelle Ricafort.

Peak demand shot up to 2,550 megawatts at the Visayas grid—with only 2,324 megawatts of available capacity at present.

Twelve power plants have been on forced outage since the beginning of August, while 15 plants are running on limited capacity, resulting in a loss of over 938 megawatts to the grid.

The red alert status is issued when power supply cannot meet consumers’ demand and the transmission grid’s regulating requirement.

As of reporting, the DOE is coordinating with the Independent Electricity Market Operator of the Philippines (IEMOP), National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), and the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) in order to expedite the restoration of affected power facilities.