The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece 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 ...

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

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is ge ...

. 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 generation of electric power. Power stations are generally connected to an electrical grid. Many ...

s with a total capacity of 1460 MW: *

Dhekelia Power Station Dhekelia Power Station is one of three power plants belonging to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus. It is located approximately east of the city of Larnaca and it has a capacity of 460 MW. History The original plant was the first of the ...

- 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 or wind park, also called a wind power station 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 turb ...

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 panels 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 The Evangelos Florakis Naval Base ( el, Ναυτική Βάση «Ευάγγελος Φλωράκης») is a Cyprus Navy Naval base, base, situated on the island's southern coast adjacent to the Vasilikos Power Station, Vasilikos industrial area ...

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 political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

, the local market for electricity generation has been opened to private companies, but so far no private power plants have been built, although four licenses 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 the 1st 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

See also

References