The use of WASP model and the generation system development in Cyprus

The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) has been using for about the past fifteen years the WASP III model (or ELECTRIC module of the ENPEP package) to determine the economically optimum expansion plan of its generation system. The WASP III model is specifically designed to compute the optimum generation expansion policy for an electric utility system within specified constraints given by the planner. The WASP model has been used extensively by EAC in planning studies carried out prior to the full development of Dhekelia Power Station, the installation of gas-turbines at Moni Power Station for peaking purposes and the installation of the new power station at Vasilikos. The use of the model served mainly two purposes: first, to help the decision makers determine the chronological development of the generation system and second, to reach a decision as to the most suitable fuel/technology in the long term. In the eighties, just after the second energy crisis, when the price of oil was high, coal was calculated to be the fuel for the least cost solution for the long term expansion of the EAC generation system. However, due to objections, mostly on environmental reasons, this policy was abandoned and the existing stations were further expanded with oil-fired steam units and diesel-fired gas turbines. The decision for the establishment of the new oil-fired power station at Vasilikos was postponed till 1994 while in the meantime a series of new studies, including a long-term expansion study using the WASP, were carried out.