Taxpayers are being made to pay €37 million for two generators that will be used for a maximum of 47 days, the Nationalist Party said on Saturday as it mocked the government for its “amateurish energy policy”.
PN energy spokesperson Ryan Callus said the Labour government had spent years calling heavy fuel oil-powered energy a “cancer factory” but was now falling back on diesel power.
“It’s an amateur energy policy, with decisions taken without planning and as a result of crises,” Callus said.
The PN spokesperson was reacting to news broken by Times of Malta that Enemalta is to award a tender to build an emergency 60kWh power plant to Bonnici Group company UNEC Ltd.
UNEC’s €37 million bid was the lowest of four, according to publicly available data.
According to the tender document, Enemalta expects the plant to operate for a maximum of 500 hours per year. Given that the tender is for a 27-month period, that means the plant will operate for 47 days if it runs at its maximum capacity.
The government announced plans to set up a temporary, emergency plant in Delimara during last year’s budget speech. It first allocated €12 million to the project – one-third the amount it will have to pay UNEC.
The power plant is expected to be up and running in early July. Enemalta – which is currently overhauling Malta’s electricity distribution network after a series of days-long power cuts last summer – insists that it has enough electricity to supply the country even during summer peak periods.
In a statement on Saturday, Callus said that the PN had been proposing a second interconnector and an offshore wind farm since before 2013, the year Labour entered government.
The government announced a second interconnector in 2021 and is currently assessing proposals for offshore renewable energy projects.
Labour Party reaction
In a press release reacting to PN's criticism, the Labour Party criticised the Nationalist Party, saying PN had believed a second power station was unnecessary and that it had not completed the interconnector while in government.
Had the Labour Party acted on this advice at the time, for years the country would have had insufficient electricity supply, with months without electrical provision, the Labour Party Communications Office stated.
In the last years the government made energy supply more robust while closing harmful power stations like Marsa, the Labour Party said.
The Labour Party said that when it comes to clean energy supply it is therefore unwilling to take advice from the Nationalist Party, which had operated heavy fuel oil plants
The Labour government said it has set in motion processes that will lead to cleaner energy that will cope with the country's economic development and the changing climatic conditions.
It confirmed that work on a second interconnector was underway.
The party said that while the country has a healthy electricity supply, the government is obliged to ensure it can cope in an emergency while ensuring rates for electrical consumption remain stable.