Enemalta building a new Lm2m switchroom at Marsa station

Enemalta was sharply criticised for two power cuts recently but, according to corporation chairman Robert Ghirlando, all small island states suffer similar problems.

"Small states suffer like we do and in terms of power cuts, what people have to understand is that we have a small isolated system, which means it is less robust," he said.

Prof. Ghirlando is also the chairman of the recently set up network within Eurelectric, an association of the electricity industry in Europe, of which Malta is a member.

The network includes Malta, Cyprus, Iceland, Jersey, Guernsey and the Greek Islands.

"They also suffer and it is very important for all of us to get together and discuss these problems and, among others, see how the EU directives, which are intended to create a single market for Europe, will affect us," he said in an interview.

"Malta cannot be part of this single market unless we have euro-connectors. If we have a few cables going to Sicily then, possibly, yes, we can be part of it, but at this stage we cannot and this project does not seem likely to happen," he said.

Turning to the much debated issue of power cuts, Prof. Ghirlando said: "Machines trip in other countries too, but the effect is more dramatic in our case," he said.

"We are trying to understand these issues, because quality of supply is becoming an issue. Liberalisation and privatisation are also main issues.

"When you have a state-owned monopoly, the emphasis is on reliability. It must be funny to hear me talking of reliability when we have that many power cuts. But if you go to a privatised system, people are competing on price, and reliability takes second place."

Consumers not only have to put up with no electricity, but when the power goes they also have to go without water and ration their showers and use of the toilet, because the reverse osmosis plant has no back-up generator.

However, Prof. Ghirlando believes that what the reverse osmosis plants need are reservoirs, rather than generators.

"We cannot have a system where there is no water every time the power goes. There was a reservoir planned for Naxxar.

"If the Water Services Corporation had this, then switching off would not be a problem."

The Enemalta engineers work day and night to restore power but, Prof. Ghirlando explained, it was not always possible to do this at the flick of a switch.

When several areas were left without power on August 7 after a principal 33 kV cable running underground between Marsa and Paceville was damaged, engineers worked round the clock to solve the problem.

However, although power was restored a few days later, the fault has still not been identified and Prof. Ghirlando said the cable had 'healed' itself.

"'Healing' is the worst kind of fault, because we don't know what the problem is. After a very delicate operation we managed to restore electricity, but the cable is still running and it is a nuisance to know we have a defective cable without being able to identify it," he explained.

Prof. Ghirlando also said that a lot of extra features were being put into the new Marsa switchroom which would enable Enemalta to deal more effectively with the power cuts.

The explosion at the switchroom on June 23, 2000, meant Enemalta had to immediately rehabilitate it in the short-term because a great chunk of the power passes through it.

"We have been constantly working to strengthen it. Our biggest drawback is that we cannot shut down the system. We have brought it to a stage where it's working reasonably well.

"However, part of the switchroom had exploded, which meant that we only had two transformers in place instead of four."

Enemalta decided to build a completely new switchroom and, after obtaining the necessary planning permission, the contractor has, in the past few days, started building the foundations.

The entire project is estimated to cost about Lm2 million.

"We are putting in a lot of extra features into the new switchroom which will hopefully help us control power cuts".