Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism, Antonis Paschalides has said that in Cyprus renewable energy sources constitute, for the moment, the only indigenous source of energy able to contribute significantly to reducing the country's dependence on imported energy.
Addressing the 3rd International Conference on Renewable Energy Sources & Energy Efficiency in Nicosia, Paschalides said they may also actively assist in creating new jobs, help the development of technology and contribute to local and regional development.
The Minister said the contribution of renewable energy Sources to the country’s energy needs last year was recorded to 5.2% compared to 2.5% in 2005.
However, Paschalides added, “there is still a long way to go. In order to promote the use of renewable sources, the government has already adopted a new Action Plan and a new Support Scheme, based on the experience gained during the first 6 years of operation of the first Action Plan and Support Scheme.”
In conforming with the provisions of the Directive for the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources, Cyprus has adopted a new National Renewable Energy Action Plan that covers the period 2010-2020. This National Action Plan, he said, describes all measures to be taken in order to achieve the mandatory targets, including Energy Efficiency and Energy Saving measures. In the Action Plan, it is estimated that in order to achieve the target of 13% of renewable energy sources to the gross final energy consumption by 2020, the contribution of renewable energy sources must increase to 16% for electricity, 23.5% for heating and cooling and 4.9% for transport.
Paschalides said government support was also proven by giving more than 15 million euros in 2010 for eligible investments in renewable energy sources and energy efficiency systems, while the budget for 2011 is estimated to exceed 25.5 million euros.
In addition to the above, there were six contracts signed for wind farms of total capacity of 157.5 ΜW, while the installed capacity of photovoltaic systems increased from 3.5MW in 2009 to 6.6ΜW in 2010. Furthermore, around 8.2MW of biomass utilization units have been installed.
The Minister referred to two of the most successful governmental measures, the first being the government’s initiative for the installation of 65 photovoltaic systems in public schools, governmental buildings and army camps, that resulted in increasing the countries capacity in the PV sector by 1.1ΜW The second are the three new support schemes that have been recently announced.
He said the public’s interest was such that from the very first week of operation of the support schemes around 30 applications were submitted for the installation of large PV systems of a total capacity of around 3MW, as well as one application for the installation of a 6MW Wind Park.
It is obvious that Cyprus will fully explore all viable local renewable sources of energy thus, reducing our dependence on imported energy and contributing to the worldwide effort to protect our environment from the emissions from utilizing conventional fuels of energy, the Minister said.
As far as the sector of energy efficiency is concerned, he said the Ministry has drafted and implements legislation which regulates the energy performance on buildings by setting for the first time in Cyprus minimum requirements for energy efficiency for each type of building and by creating a certification system for the buildings.
Additionally, the Ministry has recently prepared the Second National Energy Efficiency Action Plan which will be submitted to the European Commission by June 2011. The report includes a thorough evaluation of the preceding Action Plan and sets a national indicative target of 463.000 toe (ton of oil equivalent) or 14.4% of energy savings in primary consumption by 2020.
The Second Energy Efficiency Action Plan also includes specific measures and a detailed timetable for reaching that target. The basic measure towards this objective is the improvement of the energy efficiency of power generation by the introduction of natural gas in electricity production.
However, the continuation of the Support Schemes for investments in Energy Savings, as well as the adoption of new or recast energy efficiency related directives, will also have a significant contribution towards this objective, Paschalides concluded.
