The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) (

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

: ''Αρχή Ηλεκτρισμού Κύπρου (ΑΗΚ)'') was founded in 1952 by the British colonial government. The 28 private electricity companies of the time were nationalized and absorbed into the EAC. The Authority never received any subsidies from the government as these have always been prohibited by law. Its head office is located in

Strovolos Strovolos (; ; ) is a municipality in the Nicosia district, of Cyprus. It is a part of the Nicosia urban area. With a population of 71,123, it is the second most populated municipality in Cyprus, after Limassol, and the most populated municipalit ...

. The EAC currently holds a near monopoly on electricity generation in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. It operates through three

power station A power station, also referred to as a power plant and sometimes generating station or generating plant, is an industrial facility for the electricity generation, generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electr ...

s with a total capacity of 1460 MW: * Dhekelia Power Station - 460 MW * Moni Power Station - 150 MW * Vasilikos Power Station - 868 MW The company also distributes electricity produced by five privately held

windfarm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

s: * Orites - 82 MW * Agia Anna - 20 MW * Alexigros - 31.5 MW * Koshi - 10.8 MW * Aeolian - 10.8 MW Additionally, individuals, private companies, and the Government own almost 54 MW of

solar panel A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

s and almost 10 MW of biofuel installations and the EAC distributes the electricity these produce too. In 2015, the EAC generated a total of 4,128 GWh of electricity consuming 947,226 tonnes of fuel costing €288,632,000. Maximum demand in the areas controlled by the Republic of Cyprus reached 939 MW. A total of 2.0 GWh of the produced electricity in 2015 valued €240,000 ended up in the area occupied by Turkey and no money could be collected for it. The Authority served 559,700 customers in 2015, that is 280 per employee, up from 260 in 2014. The electricity sales per employee reached 2.02 GWh, up from 1.83 GWh in 2014. Company investments in 2015 on its assets reached €17,721,000. On 11 July 2011, a total of 98 containers of munitions stored at Evangelos Florakis Naval Base adjacent to Vasilikos Power Station exploded causing extensive damage to the station. To cope with the extended loss of its largest power station, the Authority had to impose rolling blackouts. In 2010, the maximum demand had reached 1,144 MW, the highest ever, and an even higher one was expected in 2011. As a precondition to the accession of Cyprus to the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

, the local market for electricity generation has been opened to private companies, but so far no private power plants have been built, although four licences have been granted by Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority. In the meanwhile, the EAC diversified into communication and cable television services in cooperation with a private company. Cyprus electricity authority

In 2005, the company was involved in a high profile scandal involving the alleged theft of millions of Cypriot pounds from the employees' pension scheme. On 1 January 2021, EAC's electricity supply monopoly ended and Bioland Promithia Ltd, became the first private utility company in Cyprus to directly retail electricity to its growing commercial customer base.

References

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Electric power companies of Cyprus Government-owned companies of Cyprus Companies based in Nicosia

Further reading

References