MANILA, Philippines - The country’s power transmission utility and system operator on Sunday said that it does not expect rotating blackouts to be implemented in the Luzon area next week.

“This weekend, barring any unplanned shutdown of two power plants at the same time, Luzon customers will be assured of uninterrupted power supply,” said National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) in a statement Sunday.

Two power plants, Sual 1 in Pangasinan and Masinloc 1 in Zambales, have been returned online to the Luzon power grid. With the 2 power plants online, the Luzon grid is expected to have a reserve of 600 megawatts (MW).

An NGCP official, however, could not guarantee that the rotating blackouts in Metro Manila and Luzon last week would no longer be experienced.

“Next week our reserves are about 600 MW. That's not a sufficient guarantee that we'll have no brownout next week,” said Jesusito Sulit, senior adviser to the NGCP president, in an interview over Dateline Philippines Sunday.

Sulit said that ideal power reserve in the Luzon grid should be at least 647 MW.

In a statement, the NGCP said peak demand in Luzon grid for March 6 to 11 is expected to reach 6890 MW.

NGCP also said, however, that the reserves will continue to be lean.

This is due to the maintenance works still being conducted on Sta. Rita M30 and M10 of First Gas Power Corp. until March 7; Ilijan Block B until March 7 and Ilijan Block A until March 11 which are both owned by Kepco Ilijan Corp. (KEILCO); Malampaya SPEX of Shell Phils. Exploration with expected date of completion by March 11; and the forced outage of Batangas Coal-Fired Plant Unit 1 owned by DMCI Holdings Inc. until March 12.

The country’s power transmission utility Kepco’s Malaya plant units 1 and 2 are expected to be returned online during the coming days to augment power supply to the Luzon grid.

Metro Manila and adjacent provinces were hit by rotating blackouts implemented by the NGCP due to insufficient power supply to the grid. (Read: Philippine outages worsen despite Arroyo action)

Power consumers in the Visayas areas may still experience power outages, said NGCP, due to the thin power reserves in the area.

NGCP said peak demand for Cebu-Negros-Panay (CNP) grid next week is forecast to reach 1022 MW, Leyte-Samar Grid at 172 MW and Bohol grid at 53 MW.

It said however that “load dropping among grid customers may be forced to be implemented due to the continuing low voltage problem.”

In Mindanao, however, the power supply situation remains the same – continuing power outages.

“In Mindanao, peak demand is expected to reach 1459 MW in the coming week. Although generation deficiency is expected to drop to an average of 688 MW,” said NGCP in the statement.

NGCP said that power outages in areas will still be experienced since the power transmission utility “will be forced to implement manual load dropping due to the deficit in generation.”

Low water levels in Mindanao’s hydroelectric plants are expected to contribute only an average of 210 MW in the coming week, said NGCP. At the same time the power supply problem is compounded by the continued maintenance of Western Mindanao Power Corporation’s (WMPC) units and maintenance works on National Power Corporation’s Agus 7 U2 and Agus 4 U4 during the week, said the power transmission utility.

Mindanao, home to around 21 million people, has had no let up in the power supply problem with some areas facing blackouts lasting up to 12 hours a day -- a problem that began a month ago.

The island relies heavily on hydroelectric dams but a prolonged dry spell has left many dams unable to provide electricity.

Arroyo on Thursday declared a power crisis in Mindanao, empowering her to speedily bring new generators in to the area.