MANILA, Philippines – The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) implemented rotational brownouts on Wednesday, April 10, as the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) issued a red alert notice for the Luzon grid.

Meralco said it implemented the manual load dropping due to insufficient operating reserves. The outage may last for around an hour.

The affected areas are portions of:

Metro Manila

• Caloocan City
• Las Piñas City
• Malabon City
• Navotas City
• Quezon City (Bago Bantay, Batasan, Fairview, Kaunlaran, Novaliches, Pugad Lawin, San Francisco del Monte, San Jose)
• Valenzuela City

Bulacan

• Bustos
• Malolos City
• Plaridel
• Pulilan

Cavite

• Alfonso
• Amadeo
• Bacoor City
• General Emilio Aguinaldo
• General Trias City
• Imus City
• Kawit
• Mendez-Nuñez
• Noveleta
• Tagaytay City

Laguna

• Bay
• Biñan City
• Calamba City
• Liliw
• Nagcarlan
• Pila
• San Pedro City
• Sta Cruz
• Sta Rosa City

The Department of Energy earlier said it does not expect any power interruption due to help from Interruptible Load Program (ILP) participants. Under the ILP, big businesses activate their generator sets to ease demand on the grid.

The NGCP raised the red alert status, or the likelihood of power outages in the grid, due to projected low power supply reserves, along with the outage and deration of some generators, which means running them below maximum capacity to prolong their life. – Rappler.com