Leaders will be gathering in Brussels for a summit today, with energy being on the official agenda.
While the agenda might be derailed because of the Middle East crisis, this is being labelled an important European Council meeting that might set the way out for the future of energy generation in Europe.
For Malta, the most important aspect of this meeting is the proposal for a common European energy grid. In fact, in her visit to Malta some weeks back, German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke about the need for this grid to become operational, so as to ensure that countries such as Malta would not face a situation where there is no recourse to back-up power.
This is paramount. As time goes by, it is clear that Marsa just cannot cope with the demands made for power at certain times of the year. In addition, with all the controversy about the Delimara power plant extension, we do not know if this is going to be fully operational by the time Marsa is shut down.
The economic crisis has certainly put a spoke in the wheels for Malta. Originally, there was a plan to have a carbon tax, where countries would be given carbon credits if they did not produce a large emissions footprint. Malta’s plan was to tap into the European grid and in doing so, we would have been able to earn many carbon credits (due to lack of local emissions), which we could then sell on in Europe.
When the crisis kicked in, the plan was scrapped, or at least shelved in the long term. Some thought that this might have been the end of the idea to link Malta to the European grid, as there was no ‘financial’ reason to do so.
Thankfully, reason and long-term thinking prevailed and the government went ahead and announced the issue of a tender for cables to link Malta and Sicily. What remains to be seen now is whether Malta would use the European grid in a case of redundancy, as main supply, or perhaps just during peak times.
This opens up a lot of questions. If Malta were to buy energy directly off the grid, what rate would we pay? The local rate, the seller’s rate or an EU established rate? In all probability, with the EU being what it is, some convoluted plan will have to be drawn up in order to appease the objections from certain corners.
No doubt, some of those questions will be answered during the course of today’s meeting. Of course the summit would not be complete without touching on alternative energy. Malta has finally, at least, identified a viable site where we could get wind all year round in enough quantities to generate electricity.
It is a must. We cannot hold back any longer. We appreciate that Malta is a very small place, but we cannot carry on with this addiction to oil any longer. We need more solar panels, more photovoltaic cells, wind farms, landfill batteries and more. The .com bubble came and went. The property bubble came and went. Now it’s time for the Green bubble to inflate. We are merely scratching the surface of the issue and as our technology adapts, then the whole sector will open up. Sadly, we are one of the worst countries in the developed world for generating Green energy and it’s about time that changed. Buying it from somewhere else does not count as Green.