It is heartening to observe that future energy generation means are currently causing representatives of both major political parties to split hairs. Offshore wind generation, specifically through floating wind turbines, appears to have become the latest craze, with the Nationalist Party, through Ryan Callus, proposing a floating wind turbine installation by 2036 and the government revealing a submission made to the EU’s Innovation Fund in 2018 for a similar €200 million farm (dubbed ‘Green Island’) to the northwest of Gozo.
The major driver behind this renewed interest in large-scale renewable energy production is obviously the Green Deal, which has set the bar very high in terms of clean energy production targets by declaring 2050 as the ‘carbon-neutrality’ target date for the European continent.
Despite the very ambitious nature of the 2050 target, renewables (which include wind and solar power, tidal and hydropower, geothermal energy, ambient heat captured by heat pumps, biofuels and the renewable part of waste) have definitely come of age, especially on the European continent, where, according to Eurostat, they constituted 19.7 per cent of all the gross energy consumed on the continent in 2019, just 0.3 per cent shy of the corresponding 20 per cent target established for 2020.
While non-EU members Norway and Iceland derive over 70 per cent of their gross energy needs from renewable energy means (geothermal predominates in Iceland while hydropower does in Norway), once again, according to 2019 Eurostat figures, the EU frontrunner members in terms of the renewable energy contribution are Sweden (56.4 per cent), Finland (43.4 per cent) and Latvia (41 per cent).
Conversely, the lower renewable energy penetration rates are to be registered in Luxembourg (seven per cent), Malta (8.5 per cent), the Netherlands (8.8 per cent) and Belgium (9.9 per cent), with 14 EU member states having surpassed their 2020 renewable energy targets, six being within sight of the targets and seven (including France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg) still see the targets as somewhat elusive.
Wind power, along with hydropower, contributes the lion’s share in terms of renewable energy, responsible for 35 per cent of all renewable energy being generated, even though solar power has seen the most dramatic expansion in recent years, with the total solar power capacity in the EU in 2019 being 17 times the 2008 figure. Locally, the new fad of ‘solar greenhouses’ is threatening to encroach on more farmland by proposing PV panels on greenhouses whose agricultural potential is dubious, to say the least.
Nonetheless, wind power, especially that generated at offshore sites (where wind speeds are more sustained and any footprint taken up is less contentious), is still attractive. In 2019 alone, over 500 new offshore wind turbines were installed in 10 different projects straddled across European waters, bringing the total of grid-connected offshore wind turbines in these same waters to a staggering 5,000+ figure, peppered in 12 countries, with Britain, Germany and Denmark leading the pack.
Despite Malta’s valiant efforts way back in 2009 in proposing the Sikka l-Bajda offshore wind farm, a preposition that was eventually scuppered, no offshore wind farm is currently operational in the Mediterranean, with an Italian proposal off the port of Taranto seemingly the most promising for the coming years.
The major driver behind this renewed interest in large-scale renewable energy production is the Green Deal- Alan Deidun
The Sikka l-Bajda proposal, which originally featured 19 turbines installed on the seabed (later increased to 24), was given the thumbs down in 2015 due to a variety of considerations, including environmental ones, with the site consisting of a shallow-water reef dominated by the protected Posidonia oceanic seagrass meadows, in a designated marine protected area, but also due to conflicting current uses (say, a ship bunkering area) of the same site.
The goalposts have shifted greatly since that time given that sea depth is no longer a constraint, with the floating turbines option opening up Malta’s vast maritime jurisdiction to hosting the same turbines. The PN’s proposal, in fact, has earmarked sites located outside our territorial waters, at 15-20 kilometres off the Maltese shores, where the wind resource is expected to be sustained.
An academic study published in 2019 calculated the theoretical maximum marine space held by different Mediterranean states for offshore wind production. Malta lacks the competitive edge for 0-50m depths (where Tunisia leads the pack) and for 50-250m depths (where Italy holds sway), although it does feature among the frontrunners for 250-500m depths, in testimony of the paucity of relatively shallow depths within our marine space.
Hydrogen joined the fray recently, being seen as somewhat of a silver bullet that will enable us to make the ambitious 2050 targets. The PN’s futuristic energy proposals make reference, in fact, to a potential pan-European hydrogen pipeline and to the need to convert Delimara’s turbines so as to be able to handle hydrogen, especially since Malta’s application for EU funds for a submarine natural gas pipeline seems to have hit a snag.
Hydrogen’s prospects are looking good, especially considering that, following the publication of the European hydrogen strategy, the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance was constituted last July, attracting the likes of at least 90 industry actors.
Hydrogen does not come with strings ‒ read costs ‒ attached. For instance, transport. Being less dense than air, it would need to be either compressed to 700 times its pressure in the atmosphere or else be cooled down to -253 degrees centigrade so as to convert it into a liquid. In addition, hydrogen cannot be transported through conventional natural gas pipelines, given that it makes steel pipes and welds brittle and, thus, would need to be blended with natural gas first.
Cars running on hydrogen would need to store five to 13 kilos of compressed hydrogen to have an autonomy of 300 miles. Secondly, cost. Fuel cells in cars running on hydrogen are costly, given their reliance on expensive platinum and, of last year, there were less than 50 hydrogen refuelling stations in the entire US, 43 of which are based in California.
While the EU is set to pump €400 billion in green hydrogen infrastructure over the coming decades, other countries, namely Saudi Arabia, Australia, Chile and Japan, are also set to come up to speed, mainly to offset their current greenhouse gas emissions. The future of energy generation promises to be an interesting melange of sources, with economics and more stringent emissions targets separating the wheat from the chaff, eventually.