The Republic of Cyprus is providing electricity to the north on Monday, as the north’s energy woes continue into a fourth day following an explosion at a substation on Friday, transmission system operator (TSO) spokeswoman Chara Kousiappa said.

Speaking to the Cyprus Mail, she confirmed that energy was being provided to the north “within the framework as set out in agreed-upon confidence-building measures”.

Her comments came after Ahmet Tugcu, the leader of the north’s electricity authority Kib-Tek’s workers’ trade union El-Sen said the north was receiving 30 megawatts of energy from the Republic on Sunday evening.

He said the north was producing 310 megawatts of energy, while demand was 370 megawatts, leaving a 60-megawatt deficit, half of which was being covered by the Republic.

As such, parts of the north continued to experience power cuts through Sunday night and into Monday.

Electricity can generally be procured by either of Cyprus’ two sides from the other via the two points at which the grids are interconnected, in the Nicosia suburb of Athalassa and in the village of Orounta, near Morphou.

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

On Sunday, Kib-Tek general manager Dalman Aydin said that while the fault at the substation had been “resolved”, a fault has “persisted” at one of the north’s two power stations, causing power cuts to continue.

He said that fault “could be resolved by Wednesday” and that maintenance teams are “waiting for the power plant to cool down before the problem can be resolved

Meanwhile, the north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel had gone on the attack over the matter on Sunday evening, saying that “the Turkish Cypriot people have been at the mercy of the Greek Cypriot administration regarding electricity for many years”.

The north had been entirely reliant on the electricity authority (EAC) until the 1990s when the Teknecik power station, near Kyrenia, was opened.

“When Teknecik was opened, the Greek Cypriot side cut off the electricity which was part of our partnership rights as founders of the Republic of Cyprus,” he said.

He then returned the criticism offered to the north’s ruling coalition by opposition figures and trade union leaders, saying that “trying to make political gain from problems does not align with societal conscience”.

Additionally, he said the Turkish Cypriot police, Kib-Tek, and an “expert team” from Turkey will all conduct investigations into the matter of the explosion on Friday and the subsequent power cuts, and that all those investigations would be completed “within 15 days at the latest”.

“If anyone is guilty or was negligent, necessary action will be taken, and no mercy will be given. No one has the right to inflict such hardship on our people,” he said.

However, his criticism of the opposition only served to draw further criticism in return, with opposition party the CTP’s secretary-general Erkut Sahali taking umbrage at Ustel’s assertion that “trying to make political gain from problems does not align with societal conscience”.

“What you have created is a substation that explodes, power plants that fail, transmission lines that break, infrastructure that collapses from neglect. You are running away from reality by talking about the Greek Cypriots, sabotage, and imaginary projects. This is not working. You are incapable,” he said.