Late-night blackout in Cyprus revives dark memories

A late-night blackout in the southern coastal town of Limassol brought back memories of the July 2011 munitions blast in nearby Mari naval base that killed 13 people and decimated the island’s primary power station at Vassiliko.
The outage just before 1m on Friday was caused by a faulty transformer at secondary power station Moni that blew up as Electricity Authority workers have been trying to disconnect mobile generators and hook up more repaired units to the national power grid. No injuries were reported.
The increased demand for electricity, especially in the summer months with high temperatures, often put a strain on the three EAC power stations that currently have an output capacity of 1086 MW.
According to the Transmission System Operator of Cyprus that regulates power output and distribution, the outage was recorded at 00.45 when EAC output dropped from 576 MW to 359 MW. Brief power cuts were reported in Nicosia and the nearby rural areas, but Limassol remained the most affected with full power reinstated two hours later.
Ironically, the privately-owned wind farms that are connected to the national power grid, also dropped their output from 71MW to 19MW during the same time as the EAC outage.
“Failure was caused at a unit at Moni that affected the national power supply,” said TSO Director Christos Christodoulides.