Malta “does not simply need political support on the issue of energy; real action is necessary,” the European commissioner responsible for the sector, Andris Piebalgs, said during a brief visit to the country last week.

His visit came a few days after Enemalta Corporation, this year celebrating its 30th anniversary, announced that it would be conducting a pilot project on a small wind turbine this summer. The three kilowatt turbine will be set up on a five-metre pole at Marfa, and is intended as a means of studying the possibility of generating wind energy in Malta.

Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter also announced that the corporation will set up its second photovoltaic installation on the roof of the corporation’s district office in Qawra, having already set up a similar installation at its offices in Sliema.

The use of alternative energy has been a subject that has been debated in fits and starts in Malta, and although successive governments have at times spoken in favour of finding different means of providing energy other than the use of fossil fuels, little seems to have been done about it.

With the international price of oil shooting up not so long ago, with the result that the government was forced to introduce a surcharge on electricity bills, it has become imperative for the authorities to look into other possibilities.

Wind energy is just one of them. Such a subject, whenever it was brought up, always led to controversy, which was largely due to the fact that Malta’s small size is a great obstacle for such projects. People who have travelled must have come across vast expanses of land where hundreds of wind turbines had sprouted, and perhaps realised that it was impossible to have anything similar in Malta.

Then there is the option of installing wind turbines at sea close to the coast but, then again, the issue as to where these should be situated, and the problem that the seabed in Malta, even that close to the coast in areas where turbines could be installed, is rather deep, come up.

It is however strange that while wind energy seems to be on the books, it seems that solar energy is not receiving enough attention, though we get the sun’s energy more copiously than we get the wind – there are more sunny days then there are windy ones. And the forecasts being what they are, we seem to be heading for sunnier days.

Alternative energy and its possible use in Malta is one of the challenges that the corporation is facing. And it is positive to note that Enemalta is doing what has been advocated for a long time – which is to experiment with other potential sources of energy in the hope that they will be feasible for a country like Malta.

Whether it will be possible – physically and financially – for the government, through the

corporation, to invest in alternative energy remains a big question, but at least something is being done.

But Enemalta is also working on other, major projects, including for example the connection of the Maltese grid to the Sicilian one, which in turn would link Malta to the European electricity grid.

This will make it possible for the country to

purchase energy from other European countries, Ing. Tranter said.

This is a massive project that will have to be undertaken in the short term, considering that it will have to be up and running by 2012 when, according to European Union regulations, the Marsa power station will have to be decommissioned.

Another challenge that the corporation is facing constantly is the provision of more and more energy, in the sense that with a growing population and one which is using more and more commodities that function through electricity, the demand for electricity keeps growing too.

Power cuts still occur, and they are still annoying but, following heavy investment, generally speaking these have become more rare, a far cry from previous situations when they used to happen regularly.

With projects like SmartCity around the corner, Enemalta will have to work hard to see that the electricity that is generated is enough to meet the demand – without affecting everyone else.