Although there were reports on websites indicating the possibility, yesterday, Monday, the Electricity Authority of Cyprus’ (EAC) board of directors made a decision regarding whether to pursue a 6% increase in electricity tariffs within 2024.
Ultimately, the board decided to avoid making any decision until the completion of its briefing cycle by the management on the organization’s financial situation and its liquidity needs for the coming months.
According to information obtained by Phileleftheros, the board of directors of EAC informed RAEK yesterday that the examination of the request submitted by the previous board for tariff increases of 6% should be frozen for a period, until the new members of the board are informed about the actual financial situation of the Electricity Authority and assess its liquidity needs.
Once this assessment is complete, the board will decide whether to renew the request for increases – and to what extent – and will inform RAEK accordingly.
Under these circumstances, tariffs will remain unchanged for the time being.
Executive officials of EAC had emphasized in recent days to the members of the new board that neither the current cash reserves nor the payment needs and project advancement for the remainder of the year justify withdrawal of the request for tariff increases.
The interventions of the executive officials raised concerns for the president and members of the board of directors, hence the President of the Republic’s appeal to avoid increases has not yet been accepted, even though the board met for almost five hours on Friday and held an extraordinary session on Saturday.
Yesterday, moreover, the new president of EAC, Giorgos Petrou, spent many hours at the organization’s headquarters, gathering information about its financial situation.
Today, the board of directors will convene in a regular session, and obviously the predominant issue will be the possible tariff increases, although the most likely scenario is that a final decision will not be made at this stage.
As we reported yesterday, RAEK, after the publication last week of Nikos Christodoulidis’s appeal to EAC to avoid, if possible, imposing increased electricity tariffs, addressed a letter to the board of directors of the Authority requesting information on whether the request for increases would be withdrawn.
Yesterday, as mentioned above, a response letter was sent, in which EAC requested time credit for reconsideration of the matter. The initial request of the EAC for 2024 foresaw increases of around 10%.
However, consultations with RAEK followed, and this percentage dropped to 6%, as some development projects initially budgeted and included in the request for cost recovery were deemed unable to be implemented within the year and were removed from the total request.