Manila, June 17 -- The yellow alert status on the Visayas grid was prolonged for Wednesday, from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., as demand remains high but operating margin is short of the contingency requirement.

On Tuesday, the yellow alert status was in effect from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m..

According to the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP), the grid's available capacity is around 2,550 megawatts (MW) while peak demand is expected to reach 2,478MW.

Primary reason for the issuance of the yellow alert status is the thin margin, given that units 1 and 2 of Therma Visayas Inc., unit 3 of the Panay Energy Development Corporation and unit 3 of the KEPCO SPC Power Corp. remain on forced outage.

The NGCP said for this month alone, 10 power pl...