In July 2025, the electricity market will open and consumers will be able to choose their supplier, as they do currently for phone use, Energy Minister George Papanastasiou said on Thursday night.

Speaking after a meeting between stakeholders chaired by President Nikos Christodoulides, he said there will be a test period for the competitive market lasting six months, for the systems to work, and he emphasised that this is a development, which will also reduce the price of electricity.

During the meeting issues such as electrical interconnection through the Great Sea Interconnector, natural gas and the LNG terminal in Vasilikos, the opening of the competitive electricity market, as well as issues related to storage were discussed.

He said the most important thing to have emerged from the discussion, and was of direct interest to the members of the Electricity Market Association, is the opening of the electricity market.

“We strongly believe, and agree with the association, that in order for the mix of conventional power generation and generation from renewable sources to reduce the cost of electricity, these two pillars should be connected through the competitive electricity market,” he said, explaining this is scheduled to be implemented in July 2025.

Papanastasiou explained that “the test period for the systems, to see how the suppliers work, how the entire electricity market works as a whole will start from the end of 2024 and will be in testing for six months”.

Therefore “we expect in July 2025 to launch the competitive market, which will also reduce the price of electricity,” he said.

The import of natural gas, he said, will greatly help conventional power generation, so that electricity is produced at much lower cost and therefore a lower selling price.