THOSE looking to lower their energy and water consumption should pay a visit to the state fair between March 16 and 18, stopping by stands five and six.
SAVENERGY 2012 will provide information to businesses and home owners on products and services, including renewable energy systems, and energy-saving services for businesses, hotels or homes.
ENVIROTEC 2012 will provide information on schemes to save water, improve its quality and use it efficiently.
“This year’s rainfall may have been satisfactory but we all know how hugely important saving water resources is for our country. After all no one of us would want us to find ourselves where we were in 2008,” said Michalis Pilikos, head of the employers and industrialists federation OEV which organised the exhibitions.
He was referring to the 2008 drought when the government had to have water shipped from Greece to the tune of €38 million.
The island should be fully removed from its dependency on rainfall in about a year when the desalination plants in Episkopi and Vassilikos are expected to be fully operational, said the head of the Cyprus Water Development Board, Kyriacos Kyrou.
Kyrou said that statistically less rain has been falling on the island – despite the current rainy winter – and that 20 per cent of rivers and 74 per cent of underground water was in danger of failing to meet the EU’s quality standards by 2015.
Stelios Stylianou, the director general of the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) said that the EAC supported energy saving and renewable energy sources, including supporting the setting up of a 50MW photovoltaic park in Akrotiri and distributing energy saving bulbs.
“EAC prices have nothing to do with a ‘monopoly’ but come from the EAC’s dependence on oil to produce electricity,” Stylianou said, adding that the added charges had nothing to do with the EAC and did not end up in the EAC’s pockets.
He was referring to a 6.96 per cent surcharge added to EAC bills after a naval base blast knocked out the EAC’s main power station, the recent VAT increase by two percentage points, and high oil prices.
The exhibitions are supported by OEV, the EAC, the agriculture ministry and the commerce ministry. They are funded by the commerce ministry’s renewable energy sources’ fund.
Look out for a special supplement on the exhibition in this week’s Sunday Mail.
