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Power cuts across Cyprus on Friday were caused by a telecommunications failure that disrupted the transmission of production data from major photovoltaic parks to the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), according to EAC spokesperson Christina Papadopoulou.
A separate outage early on Saturday was caused by a fault in the electricity network in the occupied areas, Papadopoulou told the Cyprus News Agency.
She stressed that none of the EAC’s power generation units experienced technical problems on either Friday or Saturday.
The Friday incident was unrelated to electricity generation or any fault in the EAC’s own electricity network. Instead, it involved the telecommunications link used to send production data from major photovoltaic parks to the EAC’s Distribution Control Centre.
That data is essential for managing the electricity system. Every 30 minutes, the Independent Market Operator receives information showing how much electricity individual solar and wind farms are capable of producing. Based on those figures, instructions are issued to the EAC on the contribution required from conventional power generation units using liquid fuels.
The Cyprus Transmission System Operator relies on this information to maintain the balance and stability of the electricity system. Data from the renewable energy facilities is sent through the EAC provider’s fibre-optic network to the Distribution Control Centre, which then forwards it to the transmission system operator.
The EAC said it is investigating the telecommunications failure with the provider involved to establish exactly what caused the disruption. Work is also under way to establish a backup telecommunications connection between the photovoltaic parks and the Distribution Control Centre, providing an alternative route for the data if the primary connection fails.
The two electricity networks are connected at two points under the confidence-building measures, meaning a technical failure in the occupied areas can affect the interconnected system.
Separately, the Cyprus Transmission System Operator announced earlier on Saturday that electricity had been restored to consumers affected by the technical fault in the generation system in the occupied areas.
