It appears that Minister Tonio Fenech (responsible for Enemalta) stated in Parliament earlier this week, in reply to a PQ from Labour MP Leo Brincat, that electricity will be cheaper if imported from Italy at an average of €92.40/MWh, whilst it would cost €178/MWh to produce locally. Regrettably, the minister failed to mention the source of this data. 

I will quote two figures taken from energy.eu, which is Europe’s Energy Portal specialising in price data for fuels, gas and electricity. This specialised site is quoting the end user price of electricity as € 0.1822 per KWh in Malta and €0.2164 per KWh in Italy – a far cry from the prices mentioned in the Parliamentary answer.

The government is also trying to give the impression that, with the interconnector, we will be able to buy cheap electricity from anywhere in Europe. However, it fails to mention the fact that we will still have to pay for the transit of such electricity. Although electricity in France is cheap, due to it being produced from nuclear energy, it would probably cost us an arm and a leg in transmission costs from France, all the way down mainland Italy, across Sicily and in to Malta.

I have a two more questions for Minister Fenech: what loss is to be expected during the transmission from Sicily to Malta and how long can the interconnector be operated at a stretch before it starts overheating and will have to be turned off?

I hope it is now clear that what the government is trying to pass off as the solution to the high cost of electricity in Malta is just an election ploy.

Josephine Borg

SLIEMA