THE ELECTRICITY Authority (EAC) will be connecting the last set of generators it is expecting by the end of August seeing off the immediate scramble for energy following the devastating July 11 naval base blast.
The first set of generators from the American company Energy International with a 60MW capacity arrived in Cyprus on Sunday and will be hooked up to Dhekelia Power Station.
The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) is expecting this week 35MW capacity generators from the company which will be fitted at Moni Power Station.
Energy International had won the tenders’ proposals to provide temporary generators to the island.
The competition was announced days after the explosion which knocked out Vassilikos Power Station and with it more than half of the island’s power supply.
The Bank of Cyprus, meanwhile, is providing 10MW from its own generators for free and will start using a further 10MW for its own needs this week.
The EAC aims to have all the generators up and running “by the end of this month”, EAC spokesperson Costas Gavrielides said yesterday.
Earlier in August, the EAC connected to the grid 115MW: 70MW from Greece, 35MW from fixing a gas turbine at Vassilikos and 10MW from Israel.
In total, the EAC got 220MW from various generators (and the repair of the gas turbine).
In July, the EAC also started receiving electricity from the north under the Green Line Regulation.
That supply “oscillates between 50MW and 110MW” the director of the Transmission System Operator (TSO) Christos Christodoulides told the Cyprus Mail.
But Christodoulides was keen to impress on the public that the situation is not yet normalised.
“Everything depends on energy saving,” he said yesterday adding that power supply was being “pushed to its limits”.
Power cuts are still a possibility with demand actually going up by 100MW this week with holiday makers all returning.
“We are expecting a greater increase in demand next week,” the EAC chairman Harris Thrassou said yesterday.
Many businesses and industries had shut down for August to help conserve energy but they should start working in September.
This includes the Vassilikos Cement factory which had made its 20MW generator available to the EAC.
“We have to continue saving energy in order to avoid power cuts,” Thrassou added.
As temperatures, begin to fall, the next increase in energy demand shouldn’t be until next July, Thrassou said adding that they were working towards having units 4 and 5 at Vassilikos fixed by then.
The EAC’s electricity bill will be revised by the Energy Regulator by the end of August, for the next six-month period.
“Every unit we add on the grid raises the cost of production,” Thrassou yesterday said.
While the Energy Regulator’s head has said that they want to limit consequences for consumers, it is still not clear whether this will be possible and to what extend.
