The electricity supplied to the Republic of Cyprus by the north was provided free of charge, the north’s electricity authority Kib-Tek workers’ trade union El-Sen leader Ahmet Tugcu said on Wednesday.
Speaking to news website Bugun Kibris, he said the electricity authority (EAC) had requested from Kib-Tek that 20 megawatts of electricity be provided to the Republic between the hours of 6pm and 9pm on four days this week.
He said this request was fulfilled on account of “good relations”, and that given the low amount of electricity requested, a fee was waived.
“Neither they nor we receive money for such low demands,” he said.
EAC spokeswoman Christina Papadopoulou confirmed to the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday that electricity had been procured from the north on Monday night after a fault at the Dhekelia power station left the Republic unable to fulfil its own electrical needs.
Electricity can be procured by either of Cyprus’ two sides from the other via the two points at which the grids are interconnected, in the Nicosia suburb of Athalassa and in the village of Orounta, near Morphou.
The north has two power stations, one operated by Kib-Tek named Teknecik, near Kyrenia, and one operated by Turkish private energy company Aksa named Kalecik, near the village of Galatia on the island’s east coast.
Both sides pay the aggregate of electricity procured from the other when larger quantities are involved, with the north typically paying the Republic for electricity.
For example, Tugcu had said last year that in July, at the height of summer, Kib-Tek had paid the EAC a total of $2 million (€1.8m) for the supply of electricity.
The fault at the Dhekelia power station comes after local residents had staged a protest there on Sunday, demanding it be upgraded with “less polluting machinery” to be “less harmful” to both the environment and human health.
Mukhtar of nearby Ormidia, Antonis Photi declared that the continued operation of the power station in its current form is “unacceptable”, describing its current machinery as “ancient”.
“It pollutes the oxygen we breathe and our environment, resulting in health problems for the people of the wider area,” he said.
The European Commission had initially demanded that Cyprus close the power station, given that it does not meet the EU’s emissions targets, but Cypriot government promises to modernise it to mitigate those emissions saw the deadline extended twice.
