Updated 3.30pm

The Planning Authority has given its go-ahead for the second electricity submarine cable between Sicily and Malta.

The permit covers the works required to lay and protect the land and subsea cable link between the Enemalta 132kV Maghtab Terminal Station up to the halfway line between Malta and Sicily.

Energy Minister Miriam Dalli in a statement described the project as critical for Malta’s plan to ensure the sustainability and security of its energy sector. “It will increase the capacity and flexibility of the country’s electricity infrastructure, to meet the country’s future energy requirements while facilitating increased renewable energy investments, in line with our decarbonisation objectives,” she said.

Joseph Vassallo, divisional manager at Interconnect Malta, the government company that will handle the project, said that the development permits concluded two years of planning and studies on the nature and the route of the new cable, which will be laid at a safe distance from the first  Interconnector, commissioned in 2015. 

Last year Interconnect Malta also concluded the project’s engineering design to determine the specifications of the required technologies, including cables, transformers, shunt reactors, safety and protection systems and other equipment.

The company is now in the process of issuing calls for offers for the implementation of the project.  

Interconnect Malta is also collaborating with the Italian authorities to conclude the permitting processes in Italian waters and on land in Sicily.

The project will feature a 121-kilometre, 225 MW electrical cable interconnection including a 99-kilometre submarine section operating at 220 kV between Malta (Maghtab) and Italy (Ragusa, Sicily).

It will thus double Malta’s current electricity interconnection with the European network. 

The €170 million project is expected to be completed in 2025. It will be part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund Programme 2021-2027 of the European Union.

It is estimated that onshore excavation works will take roughly eight months, with drilling set to take around two months and the laying of the cable four months. Works carried out to ensure the protection of the submarine cable are estimated to take some two months. 

The underground cable will connect to Enemalta’s terminal station in Magħtab. It will pass by the Ecohive waste complex being developed in area and under the Coast Road before moving offshore.  

Magħtab was favoured over Delimara as a connection point for the cable as the former already has much of the infrastructure necessary for the interconnector cable and because running the cable to Delimara would involve further risks due to the offshore LNG tanker docked there. 

The submarine cable will be buried at a depth of 1.5 metres where possible. In other areas, where it must be exposed, the cable will be encased in cast iron shells.

The cable will be protected using rocks in such exposed areas, to minimise the risk of damage similar to that sustained by the first interconnector some years ago.

Workers will place rocks on the seabed using a tube from a large vessel, to create a rock berm that covers and shields the cable from anchor dropping and dragging.

PN reacts

The PN welcomed the news that the PA had approved the second cable, which it said will continue diversifying and strengthening the island's energy provision. 

Shadow minister Ryan Callus said in a statement the PN was satisfied the government had finally stopped blaming the interconnector for energy shortcomings.

The government, he added, "was convinced that the energy plan drafted by the PN before 2013 and updated in 2021 was the best option".

Proof of this, Callus noted, was the fact the government had chosen a second interconnector over the extension of the "monument of corruption".