The infrastructural work needed to bring Malta’s electricity distribution network up to scratch will have to be done in phases, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said on Saturday.
“I wish we could dig up the entire country and do all the work that needs to be done [in one go],” Dalli said in a brief phone-in on RTK103.
“But we can’t. It needs to be done in phases.”
Dalli was speaking following another night of power cuts in various localities across Malta and Gozo. Some areas of the country, including parts of the San Ġwann/Sliema/St Julian’s area and a cluster of villages in northern Gozo, were still without power on Saturday morning.
Enemalta, the state-owned energy firm, said problems were due to faults on its high-voltage cable network and that alternative energy supplies were being used where possible.
It stopped short of saying when it expected problems to be rectified.
Speaking on Andrew Azzopardi’s radio show, the minister said every single power cut troubled her.
“I worry every time we have a power cut, especially when cuts last several hours,” she said.
But she quickly pivoted to talking about the government’s work to bolster the country’s energy distribution network.
A National Audit Office report concluded that Enemalta investment on that network was lacking for several years until 2023, when a series of nationwide power cuts sparked by an abnormally long heatwave forced the government and Enemalta into action.
As social partners demanded action, Robert Abela pledged to double investment in electricity infrastructure to €30 million a year.
That pledge came just one year after Dalli, as energy minister, had said Enemalta was accelerating its investment in energy Infrastructure.
But despite itensified works to improve Malta's high voltage infrastructure, problems with power supply consistency have continued to plague Malta this summer.
'Our problem is with distribution'
On Saturday, Dalli described ongoing investment into Enemalta as “unprecedented”.
“I and Enemalta management want to leave behind a stronger distribution network,” she said.
She shrugged off suggestions that problems stem from an inability to generate enough electricity and said a €37 million emergency power station was being set up as a fallback in case one of Malta’s main sources of energy generation developed problems.
“We don’t have a supply problem. We have a distribution problem,” she said.
That problem was compounded by a faster-than-expected rise in demand for power, she acknowledged, noting that Enemalta’s forecasts last year were that power demand would rise by 3%, when in reality demand rose 14%.