Vasilikos Power Station is the newest power plant of Electricity Authority of Cyprus. Located between Larnaca and Limassol and with an installed capacity of 640MW, it was still under development prior to the Evangelos Florakis Naval Base explosion of 11 July 2011.
The first phase came online in the early 2000s and consists of two ABB steam turbogenerators each with a capacity of 127MW and a gas turbine at 36MW. Steam was produced in heavy fuel oil fired boilers made by Austrian Energy and Environment. The boilers design allowed conversion to coal firing because they were planned only a few years after the first Gulf War that created fears of oil shortages, but eventually this option was not exercised.
The second phase consists of a single steam turbogenerator at 130MW that came online in 2005. The boiler for this was supplied by Ansaldo and also burnt heavy fuel oil. This was not convertible to coal burning and so it was physically smaller than the other two units.
The Authority decided on the use of combined cycle technology for the fourth unit of the plant. It consists of two gas turbines (GE) combined with one steam turbogenerator. The capacity of this unit reaches 220 MW. The unit came online using diesel fuel as a stopgap until a gas terminal was built in Cyprus. A fifth unit, identical to the fourth one was under construction and the tests of the gas turbines were completed prior to the explosion in the adjacent naval base. This would have ultimately increased the capacity of the plant to 860MW.
The chimney of the power station is 138m high and and is the second tallest structure in Cyprus.[1]
The explosion that severely damaged the power station was heard up to 50 km (30 mi apx) away and is believed to have involved at least 2,000 tonnes of munitions. With the exception of the gas turbine, all other generators are currently offline. It is expected that Unit 5 will be commissioned in Spring 2012 to be followed by recommissioning of Unit 4 in Summer 2012 and Units 1-3 in Summer 2013. For now, approximately 70MW of rented mobile generators are located at the station.