Last summer’s power cuts occurred against a backdrop of Enemalta's under-investment in the electricity grid, the National Audit Office (NAO) said Monday.
In a review of the energy company’s planning and investment, the auditor said that while peak temperatures and demand – factors blamed by Enemalta for the power cuts – had continued to increase since 2014, investment in the grid had fallen.
The review was presented to Speaker of the House Anġlu Farrugia on Monday afternoon after being carried out at the request of ADPD, the NAO said.
The auditor recommended the energy company "strengthen its planning function”, honour its legal obligations and ensure a more reliable supply of electricity to its customers.
Power cuts persisted across much of the country for more than a week last year amid sweltering temperatures, with Enemalta blaming the outages on heat damage to high-voltage cables.
While acknowledging that last summer’s heatwaves were the hottest since 2014, the auditor noted that temperatures – along with peak demand for energy – had nonetheless been rising over the decade.
But investment, meanwhile, had not, it said.
“Capital expenditure invested in the high-voltage network during the scoped period experienced a downward trend,” the NAO said, noting this contrasted with rising temperatures and peak demand.
“This review also shows that the DSO's [Enemalta’s] actual annual expenditure on the high-voltage network... was significantly lower than the annual allocated capital budgets.”
NAO figures show that since 2015, Enemalta had consistently invested less than had been allocated for the grid, many years investing only around half the allocated amount.
Meanwhile, the numer of new electricity meters installed each year had continued to rise, the figures show. While over 290,000 new electricity meters were installed in 2014, by last year this had risen to almost 380,000 new meters.
The auditor acknowledged, however, that the company had encountered “significant operational challenges”, including a shortage of contractors and materials.
Nonetheless, it said Enemalta’s “network development plans did not fulfill all the benchmarked criteria set by NAO”, and that it had not been in line with its “legal obligation” to publish such plans and deliver them to the regulator, which had neglected to fine the company for the failure.
The auditor concluded that events of last summer "clearly signify that Enemalta’s related expenditure throughout the scoped period was not well targeted, and/or not efficiently utilised and/or too low, particularly in view of the ever-increasing demands for electricity.”
Responding to the report, Enemalta rejected many of the findings, insisting that other energy companies across the Mediterranean region had suffered similar outages last year due to the high temperatures.
It said only 83 high-voltage joints had failed out of a total 14,000, equating to less than 0.6% of the joints on the network.
The company stressed it continuously upgraded the network and that progressively worsening outages would have occurred well before 2023 in line with rising temperatures had it not.