Electricity from Sicily was main power source last year

Malta increasingly relied on the undersea cable to Sicily to satisfy its electricity demand last year, figures out today show.

The National Statistics Office said 68% of electricity generation in 2016 was imported from Sicily through the interconnector. In 2015, the portion of electricity imported via the undersea cable amounted to 47%.

The rest of the electricity was generated at the Delimara power stations. The new gas plant at Delimara only started operating a few months ago.

The increasing use of the interconnector also contributed to a drop of 35% in emissions from power plant sources, the NSO said.

But 2016 also saw a reduction in the amount of electricity generated – 2.2 million megawatt-hours as opposed to 2.3 megawatt-hours in 2015.

July and August are the months that consistently register the highest electricity demand, recording an average of 402 and 403 megawatts respectively during the period 2007-2016.

Renewable energy up

The sun was the single largest alternative source of energy with Malta generating 133,419 megawatt-hours of renewable energy last year.

Of this, 94% was generated through solar panels.

Energy from renewable sources increased substantially over the past four years. According to the NSO, only 35,447 megawatt-hours were generated through alternative sources in 2013.