75% of Malta’s energy supply was coming from the interconnector when a widespread power cut occurred early this morning, Enemalta said today.
Power was lost in many localities as the undersea cable shut down as a result of bad weather in Sicily.
Power was lost at 1:06am and was fully restored by 3.38am. The utilities corporation said this morning that its engineers started restoring power to some localities within minutes but the whole process to ‘synchronize’ the interconnector and restore full power takes some time.
Addressing a press conference this morning, Enemalta CEO Frederick Azzopardi said the first power fluctuation had been felt at 00.11am, with a second fluctuation following a few minutes later. Both fluctuations were confirmed by the network operator in Sicily. At 1:06am, the interconnector shut down.
The areas affected included Mellieha, St Julian.s Sliema, San Gwann, Gharghur, Naxxar, Mosta, Tarxien and Birkirkara, and all of Gozo.
In a tweet soon after the power cut, the government's head of communications Kurt Farrugia said that power cuts were due to "interconnector failure following severe weather in Ragusa".
Many localities lost power but Mater Dei Hospital, the Freeport and other installations were unaffected, Engineer Azzopardi said. At the time Delimara 1 was producing 47MW while 148MW, or 75% of the total energy being used, was coming from the interconnector.
A number of machines at Delimara, including the BWSC turbine, were switched on and power was gradually restored to several localities, the Enemalta chief said. At 1.14am the Italians advised that the synchronization of the interconnector – a rather lengthy process - could start. This process was completed at 2.55am and power had been restored to all areas by 3.39am.
Enemalta said last night that power from Ragusa had been interrupted "to protect the Italian high voltage network infrastructure from storm damage". Asked to elaborate on this, an engineer said this morning that the Italian energy network, which mainly consists of overhead power cables, is often hit by lightning. “In cases where there is a huge surge the protection systems can shut down the system to protect it. It is likely that the area including the interconnector was shut down as a precautionary measure but we are still looking into the case,” the official said.
Engineer Azzopardi added that the interconnector had experienced no less than 38 fluctuations since November but had held every time, except for last night.
He said that that, with the new gas-fired power station in place, and using a gas pipeline, such an event in Sicily would have far less serious consequences. If the interconnector went out the country could lose up to 200MW at one go. On the other hand the new power station consists of several separate engines, which allowed for more flexibility.
Replying to questions, Engineer Azzopardi said the interconnector alone would not have been able to cope with last week’s record demand of 400MW. Enemalta was using the undersea cable, the old Delimara power plant, the BWSC plant and an open cycle gas turbine to meet demand.
He thanked all Enemalta employees who, he said, performed ‘miracles’ in such situations.
In a statement, the government said that last night's incident showed that Malta needed a second source of energy apart from the interconnector. If we do not have a gas-fired power station, it would mean that the country would be in total darkness if what happened last night is repeated.