A fault at the Karvounas transmission substation caused widespread power cuts in mountainous areas of Limassol and Nicosia on Monday evening, the electricity authority (EAC) said on Tuesday.

“There was an internal fault in a transformer located at the Karvounas transmission substation,” EAC spokeswoman Christina Papadopoulou told the Cyprus Mail.

“Our automatic protection systems operated, and power supply was cut off in all areas served by that transformer.”

Thousands of homes in villages including Agros, Pelendri, Kyperounta, Kakopetria and the Troodos region were affected.

Power was restored by 9.30pm after consumers were connected to a neighbouring transformer.

Papadopoulou confirmed the outage was limited. “It was only in the mountainous areas,” she said.

The outage came at a time of peak demand with the island in the midst of a heatwave, at a time when power is also being sent to the north where power cuts started on Friday morning.

When asked if the fault was linked to providing this power, she said, “No, no connection. Machines break down. No connection to the occupied areas.”