Malta hits new electricity consumption record

Malta hit a new record of electricity consumption with peak load reaching 649MW on Monday as government is still evaluating compensation measures for the hardest-hit customers.

Energy Minister Miriam Dalli reiterated that compensation will be given to households and businesses in areas hardest-hit by the power cuts of the past week but could not give details.

“Our main focus for the time being is addressing the emergency repairs so that power is restored as quickly as possible,” she said during a press briefing at Enemalta’s head office.

Dalli acknowledged the frustration people have as a result of the repeated power cuts at a time when Malta is experiencing a heatwave.

“The people’s frustration is ours… this is a challenge but we will not give up and we are working to strengthen the distribution network and the human resources,” she said.

She added that the €90 million investment announced last year in the distribution system was beefed up with an additional €70 million from EU funds.

Enemalta CEO Jonathan Cardona said Malta hit a new record of consumption today with peak load being reached between 2pm and 3pm.

He said over the past week 65 faults developed on the high-tension cable system – 56 in Malta and nine in Gozo.
Cardona said 46 faults were repaired – 37 in Malta and nine Gozo – and work was ongoing to repair the remaining 19 faults.

He clarified that the live map on Enemalta’s website only recorded faults on the high-tension system, which normally impact hundreds of households.

“It may be possible for certain areas to experience power outages as a result of faults on the low-voltage system and these are not marked on the map,” he explained.

Cardona said the company’s target is to shorten the repair time as much as possible to be able to restore electricity supply to households and businesses in the shortest time possible.

The company has a team of 60 workers on the various sites repairing the faults that have developed.

Enemalta’s network chief, engineer Stephen Farrugia said the weakest links in a network are the joints, which have their own lifetime.

“The way to mitigate this weakness is to have spare redundancy by making sure that any area can be fed from multiple points so that consumer downtime is kept to the minimum and to this end we have been working to strengthen the network by building substations and distribution centres,” Farrugia said.

Enemalta built 66 substations in 18 months. It currently has 1,600 substations and the long-term plan is to increase these by another 300.

Farrugia said underground cables dissipate heat naturally as a result of the electricity passing through them. The heavier load as a result of the excessive heat means that the network dissipates more heat than usual.

He explained that in a situation where the ground is warmer than usual as a result of the heatwave, there is limited heat dissipation, which causes weak joints to develop a fault.