This week, the moon briefly got between the Earth and the sun, creating a spectacular solar eclipse. In Malta, the eclipse was only partial. Elsewhere, people were able to witness the extraordinary phenomenon of daylight temporarily disappearing as the moon completely covered the sun.

Malta has been experiencing its own eclipse: that of electricity - and unlike the celestial variety, there is nothing spectacular or temporary about it.

For weeks now, people across the island have been getting used to an increasingly familiar ritual: the lights go out, the air-conditioning stops, the fans fall silent, appliances become useless, and households and businesses are left wondering how long they will have to wait before normality returns.

There is a certain irony in a country that likes to boast about progress, investment and a better quality of life having people sitting in darkness in the middle of the summer sweltering heat.

The power cuts have become sufficiently frequent in some localities for people to start worrying about them before they happen. Will there be electricity when they get home? Will the fridge still be working? Will the food in the freezer have survived? Will the air-conditioner be available to provide some relief from another suffocating summer night?

For many, the answer has increasingly been a matter of luck.

These are not minor inconveniences when temperatures are soaring. A power cut in winter is unpleasant. A power cut during a Maltese summer, when homes can quickly become unbearably hot, is another matter altogether. Elderly people and families with young children are particularly vulnerable, while anyone trying to sleep through a hot, airless night knows how miserable the experience can be.

With many workers now being able to do their job remotely, the unreliability of the service has added to their stress. It has happened often that they have had to scramble to the office because electricity was abruptly lost in their homes.

Then there is the food.

Some households have reported throwing away hundreds of euros' worth of food after prolonged outages left freezers unable to maintain their temperature. People with electric hobs and ovens have found themselves unable to cook. Others have simply resigned themselves to eating whatever requires no electricity to prepare.

This is hardly the image of a country supposedly enjoying an ever-improving quality of life.

The problem is also hitting the rental market. Landlords and operators of tourist accommodation have found themselves dealing with visitors arriving at apartments without electricity. Some tourists, understandably, decided that a holiday in Malta should not involve sitting in a dark and overheated apartment, and walked away in search of a place where the lights were still on.

The authorities have pointed to the investment made in the electricity distribution network, particularly after the crisis of 2023. The evidence on the ground suggests that it has not been enough.

Enemalta's distribution system is struggling to keep pace with the demands being placed upon it. Malta's population has grown, construction has continued at an extraordinary pace, and demand for electricity has risen accordingly. At the same time, summers are becoming hotter, increasing reliance on air-conditioning and cooling systems.

The government can pledge more investment. It can announce more projects. It can promise that the network will be strengthened.

But if development and population growth are consistently running faster than the country's infrastructure, people will continue paying the price.

Prime Minister Robert Abela likes to speak about Maltese people enjoying a better quality of life. There are plenty of ways to measure that claim. Sitting in the dark for hours during a heatwave is not one of them.

Social media is now awash with complaints from residents documenting their latest outages, sometimes with a mixture of frustration and dark humour. That humour is understandable. When the electricity goes off for the sixth, seventh or eighth time, there is little else left to do.

The more serious issue is what happens next.

If Malta's population continues growing, if more apartments and buildings continue being constructed, if electricity demand keeps increasing and if summers continue getting hotter, today's power cuts may look like a warning rather than an aberration.

The solar eclipse lasted only a short while and followed a predictable natural cycle.

Malta's electricity eclipse is less predictable.

And, increasingly, people are wondering whether anyone in authority knows when it will end.