EAC probes hotels that bypassed power cuts

A NUMBER of hotels managed to bypass the Electricity Authority’s (EAC) signal receiver, which was why they were unaffected by this week’s regulated power cuts.
“This is completely illegal and we are looking into it,” EAC spokesman Costas Gavrielides told the Cyprus Mail.
“We don’t know what we will do, but we will definitely do something,” he added.
Gavrielides was referring to hoteliers’ complaints that not all hotels had suffered cuts in the electricity supply to their air conditioning systems on Monday and Tuesday.
The EAC was forced to cut supply to all large premises’ central air conditioning systems controlled by the Authority, including hotels and ministries. All water pumps were also cut.

The move was deemed necessary after maximum demand exceeded availability following a fault at a gas turbine at Moni power station. The fault was finally repaired on Tuesday afternoon, meaning hotels and businesses were spared from more regulated power cuts yesterday.

On Tuesday, the EAC denied hotels had been selectively left out of the power cut and said the move had been implemented across the board. But the Mail came across at least four five-star hotels which had not been affected.
Gavrielides was prompted into investigating the matter following reports of irregularities.
Yesterday, he said the EAC had located a number of hotels that had managed to bypass the signal receiver.

“Which means the signal never reached them and could not cut off their supply,” he said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.