A series of parliamentary questions on the LNG power station’s contribution to the energy grid last week, submitted by PN energy spokesperson Mark Anthony Sammut to the Energy Minister, have been left unanswered.  

Thursday and Friday’s powerful storm saw the Electrogas power plant effectively grind to a halt as the tanker supplying it with LNG was pulled away from its jetty for safety reasons. 

On Sunday, Sammut criticised the Electrogas plant, which requires an offshore tanker to supply gas, saying in three days of bad weather the country had to rely on energy sources built by the nationalist government.

These include the Sicily-Malta interconnector, two diesel engines and the BWSC power station, he said. 

Sammut tabled a document “which shows interconnector use hour by hour during the days of bad weather”.

The document sourced data published by Italy's transmission operator, which publishes real-time data about energy use and its sources. No such data is provided by Enemalta or the Energy Ministry.

“The interconnector rated 200/225 megawatts was being overloaded,” he said in parliament on Tuesday.  

Referring to the Electrogas power station, he said that “in spite of all their boasting, they [the Labour government] only gave us energy when it was sunny”.    

In his unanswered PQs, Sammut asked how much energy the Electrogas plant contributed to Malta’s energy grid between Thursday and Sunday.    

He also asked if the minister thought the interconnector was overloaded, and if the tanker was moored during and not before Storm Helios.  

Earlier on Tuesday, Labour MPs in the Public Affairs Committee blocked questions about the tanker, saying they should be submitted to the plenary and not the committee.

"You should ask parliamentary questions about this" minister Clayton Bartolo had said during the committee meeting.

But in plenary, the questions were still left unanswered with Dalli saying the MP's criticism of the government’s energy policy was "infantile". She accused him of "practising Facebook politics”. 

“Check your facts if you’re going to do politics on Facebook,” she said. 

The minister said Storm Helios was among the worst tempests in the country’s history, with winds reaching Force 10 and waves as high as four metres.   

Enemalta followed policy and moved the tanker to the storm mooring position, she said.  

She said that despite a fault on the interconnector's Ragusa side, Malta’s nationwide power cut only lasted an hour and a half, because of the government’s belief in energy diversification.   

“The government works for the national interest while the opposition reacts in an infantile way,” she said.   

Dalli said that if the government had followed PN energy proposals the country would not have been able to handle its energy needs.  

“We need over 500 megawatts of energy output but if it were up to the PN the country would only be able to produce 400 megawatts,” Dalli said. “Through all our sources we can produce 750 megawatts,”  she added.

“The honourable MP [Sammut] is an engineer, but I’m happy he’s not an engineer at Enemalta,” she quipped. 

During the debate in plenary later, Sammut said the tanker was not in its storm mooring position before Storm Helios hit Malta but on Thursday night. This had put workers at great personal risk, he said. 

He added that the Electrogas power station only started supplying energy again on Sunday.

Sammut said he got the information he was not given in Malta from Italy.

"I got the data from Italy... Other countries have transparency, but in Malta, when it comes to energy, we have none," he said.