MANILA — A yellow alert has been raised over the Luzon grid on Wednesday, March 5, the country's power grid operator said.

In a statement, the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines said the Luzon grid will be on yellow alert from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

A yellow alert is issued when the available energy supply is not enough to meet the transmission grid’s contingency requirement, meaning a power outage is likely to happen.

The NGCP said 8 plants have been on forced outage since February, while 4 other power plants have been out since 2024. 

There are 16 are running on lower or derated capacities, making 3,362.3 megawatts of power unavailable to the grid. 

Available power capacity is at 12,488MW, but demand is expected to peak at 11,829MW.

Energy demand usually rises along with the arrival of hotter weather from March to May as consumers use their electric fans and air conditioners more, and as refrigerators use more electricity. 

The NGCP earlier said that it is not ruling out the possibility of declaring yellow or even red alerts during the summer months as power plants may have unexpected shutdowns during the period.

Last year, the country was gripped by a power crisis as record temperatures caused energy demand to surge, while several power plants were undergoing maintenance.