€50m contract signed for rollout of smart meters
A contract worth €50 million was signed by the electricity authority (EAC) and the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (Cyta) on Thursday for the installation of and subsequent operation of smart meters across Cyprus.
The contract foresees the installation of a total of 400,000 smart meters by the end of June 2027.
Speaking at the contract’s signing, Energy Minister George Papanastasiou that the cost of the meters themselves will be covered by Cyprus’ recovery and resilience plan, while the EAC will cover the cost of the meters’ installation.
In total, the contract effectively foresees an effective cost of €125 per smart meter.
The installation of smart meters had been hit by various delays in recent years, but the government has had no choice but to continue working towards their eventual installation, as it is one of the European Commission’s requirements for access to wider recovery and resilience funds.
The government put out its most recent tender for the meters’ installation earlier this year, with three companies, Logicom, NewCytech Business Solutions, and Cyta, all bidding for the tender.
Cyta’s bid was the most expensive of the three, with Logicom proposing a total cost of €33.7m and NewCytech Business Solutions €37.6m, but the EAC deemed Cyta’s offering the most suitable.
An administrative court had then found that Cyta were ineligible to provide the service as it does not fall within the scope of their business. This setback had then placed the European Commission’s funds in jeopardy, with Cyprus set to lose up to €35m in grants should at least 50,000 smart meters not be installed this year.
This, in turn, swung parliament into action, with a law being passed in May to allow Cyta to take the contract on.
In short, parliament amended the telecommunications law to allow Cyta to engage in “projects and activities related to making use of its assets, its technical or commercial capabilities, its facilities, its services and its technical know-how in the event such activities are deemed necessary and beneficial to the organisation.”
With this loose end now having been tied up and the contract having been signed on Thursday, smart meters can now be installed.
At the signing, Papanastasiou also said the government has budgeted around €120m from European Union funds to implement other projects related to Cyprus’ energy grid, including creating new storage systems, and “creating the energy infrastructure to lift our energy isolation”.
This, he said, will go hand in hand with efforts to boost Cyprus’ capacity in regard to renewable energy, with a total of €148m worth of grants to promote renewable energy and energy saving measures to be announced within the next year.