PBBM to government agencies: Ensure stable supply amid red, yellow alerts

MANILA – President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday directed all government agencies to make sure that there will be a stable power supply amid the declaration of red and yellow alerts in the Luzon grid.

In an X post, Marcos said he instructed the Department of Energy (DOE) to have a close monitoring and coordination with all stakeholders to address the situation.

"At this time, it is crucial that we all work together to ensure a stable power supply for the next couple of days. Let's adopt energy-efficient practices and stand together to overcome this challenge," Marcos said.

"I have also directed all government offices to set the standard in conserving energy and minimizing power consumption," he added.

Earlier Tuesday, DOE Secretary Raphael Lotilla said the "extremely high temperatures" affected the operations of 31 power generation facilities, prompting declaration of red and yellow alerts in the Luzon grid and a yellow alert in the Visayas grid.

Lotilla said the DOE had already asked the power plant operators to work on restoring the facilities' full operations.

Pagbilao Unit 1 went on forced outage on Tuesday, taking out 382 megawatts (MW) of capacity from the Luzon grid.

Around 19 power plants with a total capacity of 1,811.3 MW are currently not operating, including those that shut down since Aug. 1, 2023.

In the Visayas grid, the latest addition to power plants on outage were the 9-MW First Farmers Holding Corp., the 2.5-MW Victorias Milling Company, and the 13-MW Panay Diesel Power Plant 3-G, which all shut down on April 15. (PNA)