The widespread power cut last week was caused by a severe storm in Sicily, when lightning struck parts of the Sicilian infrastructure, according to an inquiry held by Enemalta and Terna Rete Italia.

“Engineers of the two Companies have confirmed that the interruption initiated at 1638hrs during a severe storm in Sicily, when lightning struck parts of the Sicilian network infrastructure. The protection systems at the Malta-Italy Interconnector’s Maghtab Terminal Station disconnected the electricity supply to prevent damage to the Maltese network. This triggered the automatic load shedding system on the Maltese grid, disrupting supply to several localities, to avoid a total shutdown in Malta.

Soon after the incident, Enemalta’s Network Control Room contacted Terna’s Control Centre to confirm that the Sicilian network was stable, so that the two grids could be synchronised once again. In the meantime, Enemalta also operated its backup generation capacity at the Delimara Power Station to reduce restoration time. At 1820hrs, power started flowing over the Interconnector and supply to all localities affected was restored by 1842hrs. 

Enemalta and Terna would like to thank their engineers and technicians for their commitment and diligence in response to this incident and in the overall operation of the Malta-Italy Interconnector.”