The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) has earned more than €169 million from desalination activities since its Vasiliko plant came online in 2013, with 2024 recording the highest annual revenue to date at €25.7 million, according to an analysis of the authority’s annual reports.
The figures show a marked upward trend in recent years as all desalination operations reached full capacity. The lowest revenue year was 2013, when the unit first began operating, with receipts just above €2.8 million.
Including an estimate for 2025 — the annual report for which has not yet been published — total revenues approach €200 million.
Annual desalination revenues (source: EAC annual reports):
- 2024: €25.7m
- 2023: €20.6m
- 2022: €19.9m
- 2021: €13.5m
- 2020: €8.5m
- 2019: €13.7m
- 2018: €15.5m
- 2017: €13.6m
- 2016: €12.7m
- 2015: €9.2m
- 2014: €14.5m
- 2013: €2.8m
The Vasiliko desalination unit has a capacity of 60,000 cubic metres of water per day and cost more than €45.6 million to build. Its commissioning was delayed after the explosion at the Mari Naval Base in July 2011 caused significant damage to the plant’s facilities. Trial operations, originally planned for 2012, began in summer 2013, accounting for the relatively low revenue that year.
A decision has since been taken for EAC to expand the Vasiliko unit’s capacity by 20,000 cubic metres per day, bringing it to 80,000 cubic metres.
Unions push for more
EAC unions have renewed their push for the authority to expand further into desalination.
Kyriakos Tafounas, president of the EPOPAI-OHO-SEK union at EAC, said in recent days that since 2018 there had been a proposal from EAC to build a large new desalination unit at Moni with a capacity of 60,000 tonnes and to expand the existing Vasiliko unit by a further 40,000 tonnes.
The 2018 proposal is also reflected in EAC’s annual report for that year, in which then-Chairman Andreas Maragkos wrote: “Beyond the production, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity, EAC has high-level expertise in desalination. The Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources called on the Water Development Department to study with EAC the possibility of increasing water production at the existing desalination unit. In parallel, the creation of a new desalination unit at Vasiliko for water supply and the construction of new desalination units at Moni and Dhekelia for irrigation are under study.”
The unions’ calls have intensified recently, with both EAC and its unions making no secret of their frustration at the rights granted to Cyta to operate in the energy sector.
State pricing
EAC sells its desalinated water to the state at rates equivalent to those in contracts with private-sector desalination operators — that is, through a contract with pre-set prices in line with, or close to, those applying to other desalination units that hold state contracts. The water is sold neither for free nor at a significantly lower price than other facilities operating under state contracts.