Filenews 17 August 2025 - by Chrysanthos Manoli
The Electricity Market Association continues to make desperate efforts to find legal grounds to prevent or delay the installation of central storage within the EAC electricity network, with the assistance of legal circles with which it has been cooperating for years.
As Fileleftheros is informed, after the written – and failed – interventions made by the association (in which private energy entrepreneurs, especially RES entrepreneurs, are united) to the European Commission, to prevent the installation of batteries within the state grid, as well as the recent barrage of signed and unsigned interventions in the media and NGOs, the SAA returned with a letter to CERA, by which it raises, on the merits, the question of the legality of its decision to authorise the independent Transmission System Operator to proceed with the storage.
Our information states that the letter was sent at the beginning of the week and through it the Electricity Market Association invites CERA to answer whether it received and approved applications for each of the three storage systems that it licensed the Operator to install in an equal number of EAC substations.
CERA has already approved the Operator's request for the installation of storage systems as follows:
– One at the EAC substation in Athalassa, with an output power of 40 megawatts and a maximum energy capacity of 80 megawatt hours. That is, it will be able to have up to 40 megawatt hours in the system for two hours.
– A system at the EAC substation in Anatoliko (Paphos) with an output power (discharge) of 40 megawatts and an electricity capacity of 160 megawatt hours (for discharging in 4 hours)
– A system at the EAC substation in the Free Industrial Zone (Larnaca), with an output power (discharge) of 40 megawatts and an electricity capacity of 160 megawatt hours (for discharging in 4 hours).
Competition is running
The Operator has already launched, ten days ago, in an open tender, through e-procurement and in full consultation with the General Accounting Office as the competent contracting authority, for the supply and installation of batteries.
According to the tender documents, the estimated cost of the three battery systems is €41 million, a large part of which will be allocated by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The publication does not indicate the amount that will be raised from the European fund. Earlier information indicated that it would be €30 million. The deadline for submission of tenders is 19 September.
We would like to remind you that in order to make it possible for the Transmission Operator to install and manage storage systems on an exceptional basis, the Republic of Cyprus had to request a derogation from the Commission, citing the delay recorded in the electrical interconnection of the Cypriot system with the European electricity network, the absence of other storage systems in Cyprus and the serious stability problems that threaten the smooth electricity supply of the country.
The European Commission approved the request for a derogation and then the Parliament approved a relevant harmonization law (for compliance with a Directive, which included the derogation!), following the initiative of the Government, so that the whole process could proceed legally, as the harmonization law prevails over previous legislation.
The new anti-storage move
Despite the fact that Cyprus is currently experiencing the risks of the absence of substantial electricity adequacy (along with the planned reserve), due to inadequate production of conventional energy and due to the absence of any energy storage, the SAA comes back and asks CERA to inform it if separate applications have been submitted by the Operator for each of the three storage systems and whether they have been licensed one by one by CERA!
Our information states that the new intervention of the DPA does not affect the tender run by the Operator. As reported to us on the part of the applicants, if it is considered that separate permits should be requested for the three systems, even though the request was approved in its entirety, the permits will be requested and received, without delaying the tender, so that the batteries will be operational by June 2026 at the latest, so that there will be a reserve of energy in the afternoons and evenings, when renewables cannot help either with energy production or with stored energy.
