Cyprus curtails as much renewable electricity in first half of 2025 as whole last year

According to data compiled by the CyprusGrid tracking platform, the island country curtailed more than 167 GWh of renewable electricity in the first six months of 2025. It was equivalent to last year’s entire cuts. On average, two thirds of the potential green energy production was lost per day in March.

In addition to being the only European Union member state without an interconnection with another power system, Cyprus only has oil-fired generators, a surging solar power capacity, wind parks and some biomass-fired facilities. Other countries, like Greece, also must curtail renewable electricity units, but maintaining system stability requires more drastic cuts in the isolated island nation. Notably, it still lacks energy storage, while the conventional power plants lack flexibility.

According to a statistical report from a few months ago, Cyprus hosted almost 850 MW of solar power, of which less than 400 MW was in commercial photovoltaic plants. Prosumers operated the rest. Licensed projects amounted to 2.8 GW. Wind power amounts to 155 MW.

Rapid growth of solar power capacity brings more episodes of overloads, when grid operators have to curtail photovoltaic and wind power production. At the same time, sudden weather changes can push production to a critically low level, which can also cause outages before conventional facilities step in to cover the deficit.

Curtailments to double this year

Founder of the CyprusGrid tracking platform Andreas Procopiou said on LinkedIn that more than 167 GWh of renewable energy was curtailed in the first half of the year. It’s how much was lost whole last year, he pointed out.

The conventional power plants in Cyprus aren’t able to lower or boost production fast enough to balance the changes in renewables

The cuts will almost certainly exceed 300 GWh in 2025, doubling the all-time high in just one year, Procopiou estimated. The average monthly growth rate has actually more than doubled from 2024, according to the developer of the electricity generation tracker.

Cuts boost emission costs by EUR 8 million

Curtailments erased 20.8 GWh in June alone. The daily average was 29.3% of total renewables output. It compares to May’s 33.9 GWh and 50.3%, respectively, after 37.9 GWh and 61.4% in April. March was the worst, with 38.2 GWh lost, or a whopping 67.9% of potential production, CyprusGrid data shows.

“Solar energy that could reduce costs and pollutants ends up being lost. For 2025 alone, the cuts already amount to more than 100,000 tons of additional CO₂ emissions and an additional burden of around EUR 8 million for emission allowances. A cost that we all ultimately pay,” Procopiou stressed.

Without storage, flexibility and serious planning, the energy transition remains just an empty slogan, the renewable energy expert pointed out.

Nevertheless, French giant TotalEnergies isn’t intimidated by the curtailments. It won the environmental approval a month ago for a photovoltaic park of 100 MW in peak capacity. But the company is planning to include energy storage.