An avoidable national crisis and our plan forward

What we experienced in the past two weeks should never have been. While occasional power outages can never be completely avoided, a complete nationwide collapse of the scale we witnessed this month was both unprecedented and completely avoidable.

People were left without power, sometimes even without water, for hours and even days, with no clue when the ordeal would end, with outages repeating themselves for more than 10 days.

Food had to be thrown away, appliances were destroyed, businesses closed shop, workers were sent back home, some ended up in hospital suffering from dehydration or heatstrokes, others died because their medical equipment could not function.

The Prime Minister and Minister Miriam Dalli were quick to shift the blame on the sun, climate change, past PN administrations. Almost forgetting that they have been in government for more than 10 years.

They made it almost sound as if this crisis was unavoidable, out of our control. The Prime Minister at one point even compared it to the COVID pandemic.

But who are they trying to fool? Were they unaware that summers in Malta are hot? Even the Malta Chamber said that this was no excuse, that our summers are “predictably hot”.

And were they unaware our electricity distribution network is crumbling under heavier loads, brought about by their economic model which was solely based on population increase?

The minister’s own answer to a parliamentary question back in March showed Enemalta had 4,800 reports of low or unstable voltage in just 14 months. An average of 12 daily cries for help from customers served by an overstrained network.

And what did Robert Abela and Miriam Dalli do about it? They announced a six-year plan with a budget of €15 million a year, barely enough to scratch the surface.

Now, after the country crumbled to its knees, they said they are doubling it. Isn’t that in itself an admission that the root of the problem lies in the infrastructure they neglected for 10 years, and not in the sun, or in whatever past governments did more than 10 years ago when the population was 120,000 less than it is now?

This crisis was unprecedented in history, it was completely avoidable, and it was their doing. Political responsibility must be carried for the sufferings the people went through and the sacrifice Enemalta employees had to undertake. Political responsibility must be carried for the years of incompetence, lack of planning, and corruption in the energy sector.

The Nationalist Party had repeatedly highlighted the bottleneck our electricity distribution infrastructure had become. We mentioned it in our Long-Term Energy Plan back in February 2021, in our 2022 electoral manifesto, and in our 2023 pre-budget document. But government, with all its highly-paid consultants, was unaware.

We have now published our vision for the electricity distribution network, based on nine major proposals to guarantee a stable security of supply to everyone.

Four proposals are related to improving Enemalta’s network and processes:

(1) Major investment in the network, with prioritisation of the 11kV network and low-voltage feeders, introducing the n-1 principle which currently exists only up to the 33kV level. This means moving towards having a redundant cable connection with each set of feeders, to ensure supply is not affected by a fault in just one cable;

(2) The smart meters which are currently just used for billing can offer a treasure chest of data if tools for data analysis are implemented. It can help understand individual consumer trends and demands per area, indicate areas with voltage instability and help Enemalta better balance the loads on its three phases;

(3) Strengthen the regulator’s role, in having it impose a 99.5% service availability on the electricity operator/s, a minimum notification period for planned outages, and compensation for service disruption longer than 12 hours (or 24 hours in case of severe storms). Compensation should increase according to the duration of the outage, and should be over and above any compensation for material damages. This type of Service-Level Agreement exists in various other countries, and enforces the operator to not just provide a service, but provide the service it promises in its charter: a stable 230V supply with less than 10% variance;

(4) Revise Enemalta’s procurement process to ensure it is not just based on price, but includes a quality criterion, especially when it comes to critical items and materials.

Four other proposals aim to shave the peak load and attempt to flatten the daily profile curve for electricity demand. This will help postpone any necessary investments in generation supply, reduce the inefficiencies in the network due to heat losses (which are squarely proportional to the current), and reduce the strain on the network in peak times:

(5) Incentivise energy efficient buildings (based upon their Energy Performance Certificates), by subjecting them to a lower level of stamp duty and taxation, whilst improving grants for PV systems coupled with battery storage;

(6) Exempt tenants of government-owned buildings in industrial parks from paying the roofspace rental fee which they are currently forced to pay when installing PV systems coupled with battery storage;

(7) Install distributed battery-storage systems at critical nodes of the network to improve grid resiliency and reduce strain during the peak loads. In the future this can be coupled with an AI-driven smart grid for optimum perforance of the network;

(8) Introduce beneficial offpeak rates which are lower than the current cheapest rate of 10.47c. Offpeak rates are currently in place only for Electric-Vehicle charging, and at a rate of 12.98c. This rate should be reduced and extended to all electricity usage in offpeak hours.

The last proposal is the liberalisation of the electricity distribution network, to create an opportunity for private investments. This will allow competitive market forces to bring down prices and increase efficiency, with the consumer benefitting from free choice of service. Currently Malta has a derogation which expires in 2027, and we need a clear roadmap to have an exit plan in place to fully liberalise the distribution market by that deadline.

We are ready to lead, we are ready to give this country a new vision, we are ready to improve the quality of life of everyone starting from the very basic needs: reassuring everyone residing in Malta that a heatwave will not leave them again questioning whether they can cool their home, store their food and find water in their taps.