Updated | Power restored after damage to Malta - Italy interconnector terminal

Several localities across Malta had their electricity services cut off after damage to the Interconnector terminal between Malta and Italy in Ragusa.

The outage took place at around 11:40am

MaltaToday received reports of power cut from localities in the North and North West areas of the island including, Mosta, Naxxar, Lija, San Gwann, Gharghur, Dingli and Rabat.

The power outage did not affect all Malta as the company's technicians managed to keep the supply from the local generation sources, including from the Delimara Power Station

“Until half an hour after this outage, the electricity supply started to be restored to customer,” said Enemalta later on Friday.  

By the following hour and a half, added the company, around 75% of customers had been given back their service.

During the night some localities also experienced power cuts with localities such as Msida having their power back on Friday morning.

“The company is working with the engineers of its partner companies in Sicily to investigate the cause of the damage and take any necessary precautions to further reduce these types of risks.”

"Enemalta fixed around 80 faults caused by the storm in less than 24 hours," the energy services provider said on its social media.

Enemalta warned of Thursday's storm saying its Customer Response Team had been reinforced by 50% more technical staff to make sure any damages caused to exposed infrastructure are repaired in a timely manner.

PN believes Enemalta's "distribution crisis" is causing recent power cuts

According to the PN, Enemalta has been facing a distribution crisis for months, as many people, often, are ending up with the light completely cut off when they install Over & Under Voltage Protection Relay as required by Law.

“This is the result of the lack of investment in the infrastructure and in the electricity network, particularly when one considers the increase in the population and in the new buildings,” said PN energy spokesperson Mark Anthony Sammut.

All the Electrogas promises should have fixed Malta’s energy problem, but instead “we have a power station which only works on sunny days,” Sammut said on Friday evening.