Every year, at the height of the summer, we face the same problem. The Electricity Authority’s power stations had great difficulty producing enough power to satisfy demand. The antiquated generators are working at their limits and if something happens to one of them, as was the case on Wednesday, households are subjected to power cuts. These lasted 20 to 30 minutes per household, the Transmission System Operator turning the power off in different areas until 8.30pm.

The problems at Vasiliko and Dhekelia were solved by Thursday and there was a return to some normality, but the danger of cuts during the hottest time of the year has not gone away. It can appear again at any time in these conditions, in which old generators – those in Dhekelia are more than 40 years old – that should have been replaced years ago, are working at full capacity so the demand for electricity is met.

The government has followed the same policy for electricity as it had done for the water shortage, which was to ignore the problem, despite the big warning signs, until the last minute. In the case of the water supply, we got lucky, because we had a plenty of rainfall this year with large quantities of water flowing into the reservoirs. This was just as well, because the mobile desalination plants would not have been operational before October. We cannot rely on a bailout by nature in the case of the electricity supply. Perhaps lower temperatures would lower demand for electricity, but that has not happened.

Opposition parties went on the offensive, accusing the government of having no plan for ensuring the adequacy of power production and of doing nothing about a problem that has existed for the last two or three years. They had a point, even though it was a bit unfair to direct their fire at Energy Minister Michael Damianos who has been in the post for seven months. His response, that the problem had existed for a long time and that the previous government had a big share of the responsibility for the current situation, may have some merit but the Christodoulides government which has been in office for three and a half years, cannot absolve itself from responsibility.

For too long governments have been passively waiting for things, miraculously, to improve, in the energy sector. We are nowhere near importing natural gas so a sixth unit at Vassiliko sits idle and a private power station cannot work at all. RES have helped the situation during the day, but we will have to wait until next year for the first storage facilities that might also make a difference.

This is in the future. What people expect to hear from the government is not who we should blame, but what solutions it can offer now so there would be no more power cuts.