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Consumers will experience a drop of around 6 per cent on average in their electricity bills as a result of the new tariffs, state power company EAC said on Tuesday.

The new tariffs, effective as of September 1 and until the end of 2017, abolish the staggered charges currently in force, whereby the charge increases with consumption, replacing them with fixed charges per kilowatt-hour.

At a news conference explaining the new billing system, EAC chairman Andreas Marangos said most categories of consumers stand to benefit.

For other categories – storage room heaters, street lighting and water pumping – the cost would go up, but this would be absorbed by the EAC for the next four years or until the full opening up of the electricity market, whichever comes first.

The default bi-monthly bills will carry a charge of 13 cents per KWh.

Alternatively, people can apply to the EAC for the variant, where the price is 13.62 cents per KWh between 9am and 11pm, and 11.72 cents per KWh from 11pm to 9pm.

For vulnerable groups, the EAC will be charging 10.4 cents per KWh.

The rest of the tariffs concern small commercial clients, large commercial clients, small and large commercial clients on seasonal time of day (Stod) low voltage, large commercial clients on Stod medium voltage, very large clients on Stod high voltage, street lighting, water pumping, storage heaters.

The main reason for the change is the reduction to EAC profits for 2017 imposed by the energy regulator. This year would see the EAC earning €30 million less and that money has to be transferred to consumers.

In a related development, energy minister Giorgos Lakkotrypis revealed on Tuesday that by the first quarter of 2018 the government will invite tenders for the importation of natural gas for electricity generation.

He said the Natural Gas Public Company (Defa) was currently at the stage of hiring consultants to prepare the tender documents.

Asked about the ongoing drilling for gas in offshore Block 11, at the well dubbed ‘Onisiforos’, the minister advised patience.

Drilling operations were proceeding on schedule, he added, although the processing of the data could take months.

Source: CyprusMail