Tag: energy

Vasilikos power station is gone. Tough times for Cyprus ahead

Cyprus Mail reports that Vasilikos power station was completely destroyed by the explosion.  But we already sort of knew that.  The questions were more along the line of “What now?”.  Cyprus Mail provides some good analysis as to how this will affect Cyprus in the nearest future.

However the cost of this explosion does not just affect in terms of rebuilding, compensating and repairing. The dynamic effects on companies will ensure a return to deep recession, especially if you factor in the effects of the electricity crisis is having in Cypriot companies. The electricity shortage causes three devastating blows to our economy: reliability, capability and cost.

The lack of reliability in electricity provision is a great drag to the economy. Already power cuts are taking place and sadly it seems that since our electricity system is operating at full capacity the authorities have not been able to announce when and where such cuts should occur. As a result business are already suffering from lost labour time, repairing software and hardware issues relating to cuts, and an ever greater need for technical support, all in a period where the focus has been to cut costs and thus remain competitive with other European companies.

Read the full article for more.

Cyprus on the way to renewable energy

Working in the office on Omonia Avenue in Limassol, I couldn’t have not noticed the wind turbines.  They were transported in pieces by huge trucks from the new port to somewhere.  Some people went adventurous and actually located the wind farm near Pafos.

But until today I haven’t heard any news coverage of the wind farm.  Today, however, Cyprus Mail runs the story.

The first of the planned 41 turbines at Orites wind farm was turned on for about an hour on Wednesday and produced the first independent renewable energy for Cyprus using the wind. The electricity was then fed onto the main power grid.

These are excellent news!

The 41 wind turbines of the farm – the first of its kind in Cyprus and the largest in the region – will soon be providing the island with 83MW of renewable energy. Orites is regarded as a big project for the wider Eastern Mediterranean region, as in Greece and Spain 20 to 30 MW production is regarded as a huge amount. At its peak, the total power consumed island-wide is between 1,000 and 1,200MW.

And of course there was no way that these excellent news wouldn’t be shadowed by something and someone.   It turns out, none of the officials have much interest in what is going on with the energy on the island.

Wednesday’s event was not attended by any officials despite invitations being sent out. “Despite sending out numerous invitations none of the Ministers, MPs or officials came. I can’t believe they weren’t even curious to see what was happening,”

This is sad.  Obviously it is an important moment and many people worked really hard to make it happen.  It would be nice if some interest was shown from the government.  Hopefully the president will attend the official opening of the farm in September or October.