Summary
For those that have Domestic Solar PV with the ripple control installed on their PV systems there are several bad omens that suggest that the ripple control will be activated and their PV production will be stopped far more in 2026 than it was in 2025.
It might also mean that we will all start to experience local power cuts if the EAC is not able to balance supply with demand due to an excess of supply.
What are these bad omens for Curtailment?
1. Ripple control was activated during a dark January 2026 (at least once) and overall the EAC announced that Solar PV was to be curtailed to some extent in over 50% of the days in January 2026.
2. During 2025 aprox 122MW of potential PV power was added to the grid.
3. 12,000 applications were made for residential PV net metering agreements just for the one month of Dec 2025. This suggests more than 48MW of potential PV capacity to be installed in early 2026 as a result of just the applications made in Dec 2025 (12,000*4k systems).
4. The EAC are only installing 120MW/400MWH batteries and these are only due to be operational by end of June 2026.
5. There are no real incentives for domestic PV solar prosumers to buy and install a battery. Has anyone got a battery who has a domestic PV solar system attached to the grid?
Implications and calculations for curtailments during 2026
If you look at the above figures they imply that there will be at least an extra 170MW (122 plus 48) of potential PV power will be in the system by early 2026 compared with end of Dec 2024.
A 4K system will produce, easily, 20K of power a day on average from March onwards... which equates to roughly 5K of power produced per day for each installed 1K system.
This implies that from March 2026 onwards 2026 there will be an extra 850MWh (122+48 = 170 of extra potential Solar PV multiply by 5 = 850MWh of power per day) of PV power being produced on the island per day compared to Dec 2024. That suggest that we could easily have an extra 26GWh of energy produced by Solar PV in March 2026.
There is a double benefit here – the extra production is partly put back into the system and partly used to power the homes that have the Solar PV. That means that overall not only do we have more supply but we also have less demand in the system during the day. However, this leads to the need for curtailment to increase due to less demand and the need for curtailment also increases due to there being more power produced in the network.
Comparisons to 2024 and 2025
In March 2024 the amount of curtailed Solar PV by DSO was 26.3GWh (SCADA 26.1/Ripple 0.2)
In March 2025 there was Solar PV curtailment in 25 days out of the 31 Days and the amount of curtailed Solar PV by DSO was 36GWh (SCADA 29.8 / Ripple 6.2).
As can be seen in March 2025 most of the increase in Solar PV curtailment compared to March 2024 was controlled by the ripple control. So mainly on those domestic household PV installations. This is what caused the outcry about curtailments in spring 2025.
If we assume its about as sunny this year as it was last year and the additional Solar PV is on line, then its hard to believe that the Curtailment will not substantially increase – perhaps we will have at least 62GWh (36 from 2025 plus extra 26 in 2026) of curtailment in March.
If we assume that most of the increase will continue to fall on the ripple control then I suggest that Solar PV curtailments in March 2026 could exceed 32 GWh (6.2 from 2025 plus 26 extra for 2026) just for those who have a ripple control. Its likely that we will slightly lower curtailments needed for April / May as the tourist season kicks in and there is more demand for electricity.
Predicted curtailments for domestic PV from March 2026 onwards
It looks like every day from March onwards someone will have their PV production cut off and most will perhaps be turned off for more than 2 or 3 days a week.
What happens when the Grid scale batteries that are being installed come on line in June 26?
Let’s say they do start working during June (that would be nice) – They will have the capacity to store 400MWh of power per day. But as per the calculation above we will already be producing and extra 850MWh of power per day. So even after the batteries are fully recharged we will still have an extra 450MWh per day of extra power per day compared to 2025 and thus there will still be more curtailment on average than there was in 2025. In other words we could double the amount of Grid Scale batteries currently planned to be installed and the amount of curtailment would still increase this year compared to 2025.
Power cuts?
Domestic PV being produced by 10’s of thousands of households presents a real challenge for the EAC to predict and control in the network. There is no realtime method they have any way to predict or monitor how much is being produced at anyone time. And the network has to be balanced on a realtime basis.
I do not envy the EAC in trying to balance the network and the inevitable outcry from politicians when the Solar PV systems are being turned off far more than they were last year.
2026 Domestic PV Curtailments to be much higher than 2025?
Re: 2026 Domestic PV Curtailments to be much higher than 2025?
They should encourage / subsidize buying batteries on a household level. That should have quite an impact. I can´t understand anyway, why batteries in Cyprus are so much more expensive than they are e.g. in Germany.
