AYIA Napa and Paralimni were left without water for 12 hours on Sunday after the Dhekelia desalination plant malfunctioned while Nicosia also experienced some water cuts.
A power cut at the desalination plant shut the water supply from the plant to the Frenaros reservoirs, leaving the coastal resorts of Ayia Napa and Paralimni, along with their hotels and tourists, with no water.
Initially attributed to the high levels of humidity in the general area of Larnaca on Sunday, the cause of the power cut was the focus of debate yesterday between the plant’s director, Gerasimos Karamontanis, and the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) spokesman, Costas Gavrielides.
Gavrielides said the EAC was not to blame for the loss of power at the Dhekelia desalination plant that occurred at 1:30 am on Sunday.
He said the power cut was probably a result of damage within the desalination unit’s system, while Karamontanis insisted that the cut was caused by a failure in the EAC’s network.
“There was no power cut whatsoever from the EAC to the desalination plant at Dhekelia,” the EAC made clear in a press release.
It added that power cuts can occur at any time since no electricity network is damage-proof.
Gavrielides said that the plant’s directors should have provided for alternative means of power.
“Not even the EAC can guarantee the uninterrupted provision of electricity to all of its clients, 24 hours a day,” he said. “A client that cannot afford to remain without power for even an hour should provide for an alternative power supply.”
Karamontanis on the other hand said that the government’s contracts for the desalination plant did not provide for backup generators. “Without permission from the government, we are not allowed to have extra electricity production units,” he added.
To make matters worse, once the desalination plant had lost power it required higher amounts of electricity to restart.
According to Gavrielides, this extra power could not be provided at the time the power cut occurred as the electricity substation at Dhekelia which supplies the plant with electricity had malfunctioned.
Karamontanis claimed the substation in question uses old transformers and that Dhekelia residents have been expecting the construction of a new one, supposed to be completed in 2009.
Water supply in the area resumed at 10 am on Sunday, but according to Mimis Hadjizacharias of the Paralimni water board technical services, problems from the cut only began to be tackled yesterday.
“The problem with the Municipalities of Protaras and Ayia Napa, is that they do not have reservoirs of their own, so whatever happens, be it a power cut or a water supply cut from elsewhere, the whole area lapses into a state of chaos,” Hadjizacharias said.
The lack of reservoirs makes July, August and September extremely hectic for the Water Board of Paralimni. “It great problems for hotels and might be detrimental for tourism,” Hadjizacharias added.
Water supply was also interrupted in Nicosia on Sunday.
George Demetriou of the Nicosia water board said that the problem originated at the desalination plant in Dhekelia, and that water supply to the capital was subsidised by water coming in from Kornos.
The water board technical services were sent out to deal with other, normal water supply problems as usual, but because of the unbearable heat, crews had to stop working at 2:00pm.
“Our crew was out fixing and carrying out maintenance work like it does every weekend – the cut had nothing to do with that,” Demetriou said. “The problem was the heat. It killed us, and we couldn’t fix all the problems on the day, but the remaining cases were dealt with on Monday morning.”
