Recurring power cuts in north Cyprus to end on Thursday - Kib-Tek general manager

North Cyprus’s electricity authority  Dalman Aydin on Wednesday promised that the power cuts which have been plaguing the TRNC since an explosion at a substation last week would end on Thursday.

Speaking to public broadcaster BRT, he explained that the fault which had occurred after Kib-Tek had attempted to bring the system back online after it collapsed following the explosion last Friday had almost been resolved.

“The faulty generator will be brought back online this evening. The power cuts will end tomorrow,” he said. He also refused to rule out the possibility that the explosion had been caused by external sabotage.

“We will investigate the cause of the incident down to the smallest detail. In addition to possible technical reasons, we are not ruling out the possibility of sabotage,” he said.

Asked to elaborate this, he stressed that “our suspicions are not from our own personnel or within [Kib-Tek]”, but said that there had been “external intervention at the substations in Lefkosia and in Meriç”, the former of which is located in the suburb of Yenişehir and the latter of which is located near Ercan airport.

He added that Kib-Tek’s own staff is “competent” and said the team of experts which is due to arrive from Turkey will “conduct an investigation from a different perspective”.

“Our goal is to prevent a similar incident from happening again. Our team is transferring information to them first of all, and then they will come to the island,” he said.

Then asked how it was possible for an explosion at a substation near Güzelyurt to eliminate north Cyprus’s entire grid, he stressed that this is typically not what happens.

“Normally, protection systems isolate the fault at its location. This time, it spread all the way to Lefkosia and the Teknecik power station,” he said, with Teknecik being located just outside Kyrenia.

He added that possible causes for the substation not being isolated “include interruption of the relay supply, deactivation of the protection system, or external intervention”.

He went on to say that a feasibility study for the planned subsea electricity cable which will connect north Cyprus with Turkey “has been completed”, and that the cable will take around four years to complete.

The explosion occurred at around 5am on Friday at a substation near the village of Güneşköy, around a mile southwest of Güzelyurt, with Kib-Tek saying that it had occurred inside the substation’s central circuit breakers and caused “serious damage” to the substation’s transformer.

Allegations regarding “sabotage” of the north’s power infrastructure leading to the explosion have not been received well by Kib-Tek workers’ trade union El-Sen leader Ahmet Tugcu.

He had insisted on Tuesday that questions should instead be asked of Aydin.

“They should question Dalman Aydin, not the workers, about whether there was sabotage. The real saboteur was Dalman Aydin. Ustel readily comes out after every power cut and claims it was sabotage,” he said.

He added that if allegations of sabotage are going to continue to be made, “they should install security cameras at power stations and substations”.