A widespread power outage affected areas of western and greater Nicosia late last night, causing disruption to households and businesses. According to our information, the outage was attributed to a medium-voltage fault and was recorded in Engomi, Agios Dometios, Archangelos, Anthoupoli, Lakatamia, and Latsia.

As Brief writes, initial reports from residents described a “domino effect” of voltage sags, followed by complete blackouts in neighbourhoods supplied by shared network feeders. In such cases, a serious malfunction or the activation of protection systems at a critical point can lead to the rapid isolation of sections of the grid, resulting in an extensive outage.

At the same time, information management emerged as a second challenge, as many consumers reported difficulty finding reliable updates regarding the scope of the fault and the estimated restoration time.

The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) operates an online outage information page, as well as the EAC Mobile application, which provides notifications and incident searches. However, during events with heavy simultaneous traffic, digital channels are often strained, intensifying public uncertainty.

Experts note that electricity networks become more vulnerable when multiple stress factors coincide, such as high demand due to cold weather, ageing substation equipment, and, in rarer cases, space weather. Notably, during the same period, a strong G4-level geomagnetic storm was recorded internationally. Such phenomena can, in certain systems, increase load and stress on transformers and protection mechanisms. This does not, however, automatically imply a causal link to the Nicosia incident without technical confirmation from the network operator.

According to EAC technicians, a medium-voltage outage refers to a power interruption occurring in the part of the electricity network that transmits power at intermediate voltage levels—typically around 11–22 kV in Cyprus and Europe—before electricity is stepped down to low voltage for residential supply.

As a result, multiple neighbourhoods may lose power simultaneously, since medium-voltage lines supply several low-voltage substations. Voltage dips or fluctuations often appear shortly beforehand, as the network attempts to redistribute loads. The fault may originate from a medium-voltage cable, a switch, a substation, or a protection system that trips the circuit for safety reasons.