The Gozo shadow minister has warned that Gozo’s electrical infrastructure is antiquated and cannot handle the island’s summer tourist influx, predicting a “summer of power cuts”.
“The electrical grid for Gozo was designed for the demand 10 or 15 years ago, which was much lower than now. Gozo is expecting a whole summer of power cuts as a result,” Nationalist MP Alex Borg said.
Besides an island-wide blackout on Tuesday, one or a few towns in Gozo lose power every day, he said. Parts of Victoria, Xagħra, and Xewkija experienced a power cut on Friday, Borg added.
Għarb was left in the dark for almost 24 hours on Saturday.
“Every weekend, there is an influx of Maltese holidaymakers, which puts extra pressure on the infrastructure,” he said.
“Something needs to happen now if we want to prevent this from happening next summer,” Borg insisted.
He called on the government to invest in the Gozitan distribution grid and noted that none of the 82 kilometre of new cable laid by Enemalta was for Gozo.
Enemalta’s executive chairman, Ryan Fava, acknowledged on Sunday that the grid connecting Malta’s power generators to Gozo needs improvement, adding that there are short-term and long-term actions required.
“In the short term, Enemalta will look at how to best strengthen the three medium voltage cables (33kv) that supply Gozo’s power,” Fava told Times of Malta.
“In the long term, Enemalta plans to build new connections, which would require new marine cables. That is no small feat. It’s like building a small interconnector,” he said.
Still, he said, the country’s electric grid is in a much better position compared to last year after 82 kilometres of new cables were laid in the run-up to this summer.
“We can see the results in the areas where we upgraded the network; there were almost no power cuts and, when there were cuts, power returned quickly,” Fava said.
The areas where Enemalta upgraded its network this year included places like Naxxar and Mosta, which had prolonged power cuts last July.
In areas where the grid was not strengthened, consumers experienced prolonged power cuts. This includes parts of Gozo and Gżira, “which had no power for almost a day”.
“In those areas, a backup cable that can be used to feed residences if the primary cable develops a fault also had a fault,” he said.
'Employees working hard to ensure cables are healthy'
“Enemalta employees are working hard to ensure a constant supply of power and that all cables are healthy to have backup connections ready,” he added.
Engineer Miguel Borg was among the Enemalta workers making repairs deep in an underground culvert after a cable caught fire on Tuesday, leaving Gozo in the dark for five hours.
“Repairs began immediately and continued for a few days but electricity to Gozo returned in a few hours because other cables were used to supply power,” the engineer said.
Pointing to the culvert, the engineer said on Friday: “These cables are now healthy and we have resilience for Gozo again, meaning that if another fault develops in a cable, we can switch to another.”
Standing on the Mellieħa main road leading to Għadira Bay, he described how plumes of smoke emerged from the central strip of Dawret il-Mellieħa. “A cable culvert underneath the strip on the main road caught fire due to a fault on Tuesday,” the engineer said. “This fire burned other cables as well.”
Civil Protection Department personnel went on-site and extinguished the fire. Health and safety officers then ensured the culvert was safe to work in.
“After a fire, there can be a lot of fumes,” the engineer said. He and nine other workers then began repairing five cables damaged by the fire.
“A culvert is not an ideal place to work in. It is only a bit wider than a metre and, because the culvert is so narrow, you can’t have too many workers inside, so people can get out quickly if something happens,” he explained.
“Due to a lack of air, fans were needed to create artificial ventilation,” he said.