Malta has not experienced the same type of power cuts as last summer due to new underground electricity cables, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli said.

Earlier this month, a one-hour nationwide power outage was caused by the Malta-Sicily interconnector being switched off for maintenance works at the Magħtab terminal station. According to Enemalta, during testing of the switchgear, a number of distribution feeders tripped.

Despite power being restored over an hour later, many people expressed their fear that the island will go through a repeat of last summer, where for nine days many parts of the country were left without electricity as temperatures soared above 40°.

Dalli dismissed such concerns telling Times of Malta that “the  works carried out in the past few months, where we placed more than 70 kilometres of cables, are leading us to not experience power cuts that we experienced last year”.

The additional cables will increase alternative connections and reduce the risks of network disruptions and make it easier and quicker to restore service following outages.

 Enemalta is also planning to build another new distribution centre in Siġġiewi and upgrade the ones in Msida and St Andrew’s.

“There is continuous maintenance work going on, and we have seen that when there is a power cut it is addressed as quickly as possible,” she said.

Dalli stressed that last Sunday’s national power cut was different to what took place last summer.

“It was a situation where there was damage to the switchgear related to the interconnector, just as damage can happen in anything else,” she said.

“The interconnector had to be switched off, with maintenance work ongoing at that moment, and as it was tested, it tripped the plant.”

She said some localities had the electricity supply back within 15 minutes, while in other places it was restored after an hour.

“These are two cases which are very different, and thanks to Enemalta workers who address situations in the shortest time.”