AKEL watches the energy sector more closely than any other party. That’s why it’s particularly disappointing when they too fall into the trap of superficial opposition politics.
Yesterday, AKEL issued a statement about recent cuts to residential solar power generation. They correctly note that “the system as it stands will continue to waste enormous amounts of renewable energy”.
However, when we speak of “the system”, we shouldn’t mean just “the electricity grid”, but rather the broader context of production and consumption patterns, lack of storage, and absence of electrical interconnections that could mitigate the core problem: seasonal consumption variations and overproduction during peak sunlight hours. Consumption exceeds 1,200 megawatts in summer months but drops to 500-600 in autumn and spring—and this year even in January (with installed solar capacity of about 900 megawatts!).
Remember when in 2022 the grid operators wrote to the ministry saying “halt solar installations until ripple control becomes mandatory, otherwise the system is at risk”? This would allow them to disconnect residential solar panels and small commercial parks (up to 120 kilowatts) when necessary.
Fortunately, one of the current government’s first decisions (initiated by the previous administration) was to implement ripple control from mid-2023. This now appears crucial for system stability and adequate supply. Without it, we might have faced both renewable energy overproduction and power cuts! Operators would have been forced to cut not only all large commercial parks during low demand but also power consumers, as they’d have no way to reject production from residential solar panels and small parks (totalling about 300 megawatts) without ripple control.
The technical experts warned us. When politicians demanded “more renewables now”, they cautioned that increased renewable capacity would lead to more “green” energy being wasted until we acquire reliable storage (even if expensive) or electrical interconnection. We’re stuck with these cuts, and it’s only going to get worse. Storage installation takes time and only limits rather than solves the problems, according to experts.
CERA has licensed many private companies for hundreds of megawatt-hours of storage capacity over the past 5-6 years. These licenses weren’t implemented, mainly because businesses are waiting for government subsidies. When the government published a grant scheme for renewable parks to install batteries—provided they sell power through tenders or price caps to EAC supply, benefiting all consumers—chaos ensued again. We hope the scheme survives private producers’ interference.
Yesterday, AKEL claimed that “while thousands of households installed solar panels to reduce electricity costs, they end up paying high costs for several months anyway”. Sorry, but they’re not paying high costs because they lose solar production for 2-3 hours occasionally some months. They’re losing some kilowatt-hours from what they freely store in the EAC network for evening use. They’re drawing from their accumulated kilowatt-hour credit with EAC.
The Transmission System Operator confirms that last year there were 11 two-to-three-hour cuts from some residential solar panels and small parks. This January surprised operators unpleasantly with stuck-low consumption, hence increased cuts (already 6-7 in the first 20 days).
As operators also assure us, they first reduce large parks to near-zero production before moving to post-2023 residential solar with “limiters” (affecting about one-third of each affected net metering owner group in rotation).
Things will worsen as solar capacity increases without outlets for its production. But the biggest losers aren’t residential or commercial solar owners. It’s the mass of residential consumers without solar panels who bear the costs of all this unit switching, EAC engine running, solar subsidies, storage subsidies, etc.
These are the ones AKEL and all parties should be concerned about.
