The Cyprus electricity market will open to independent producers in mid-September and from October 1, the trading in electricity will commence. The opening up of the market, which was meant have taken place years ago, but was repeatedly postponed for a variety of reasons, was finally announced by the Cyprus energy regulator Cera last week.

If it does not happen on the scheduled date, nobody will be surprised as postponements have been very frequent. First the EAC unions were opposed to the ending of the Authority’s monopoly, then they disagreed with the creation of an independent transmission system operator and wanted it to be under the EAC’s authority. In the end they agreed that the operator would be independent as long as it was staffed with EAC workers. Then, the staff at the operator asked for more time to learn how to manage the system which, they argued, was complicated.

Now, it appears, everyone is ready for the opening of the market and confident that it will go well. This does not mean that electricity rates, which are the second highest in the EU, would be reduced by the competition. Energy Minister George Papanastasiou sounded a note of caution when he was asked about the effects liberalisation would have on prices. He said last week he was unsure about how the prices would be affected. In most markets, prices remained stable in the beginning, but they eventually came down thanks to competition.

Papanastasiou admitted that “in a small market that had not been tested,” it was difficult to make predictions and “we will see along the way,” what will happen. Not very encouraging comments, but we have to accept this is a small market and it is unlikely prices would be forced significantly downwards. In fact, the high demand for electricity and low production capacity might ensure electricity prices remain at the usual high levels.

The Elecricity Market Association, which welcomed the announcement by Cera, said the opening of the market was “important for normalisation of energy prices,” which does not mean they would come down. The Association said that the introduction of the competitive market would allow the Cypriot consumers “for the first time to choose their electricity supplier of choice.” And this “will strengthen competition and lead to fairer and most cost- oriented prices.”

What consumers would have liked to hear, after years of paying top-buck for their electricity, was that the opening of the market would lead to lower rates. Nobody has dared to say this, and it would be no consolation that we would be able to choose our electricity supplier of choice when theses suppliers are charging the same prices as the EAC.