Environment suffers in urgent plan for 60MW emergency plant, says MP

Nationalist MP and shadow environment minister Rebekah Borg has joined in the chorus of ‘population’ critics, saying an emergency plant required for Malta’s electricity is the result of unplanned labour migration.

Enemalta will not be in a position to guarantee the country a “security of energy supply” during peak summer months, without a new 60MW, temporary diesel-powered ‘emergency plant’ in Delimara, as reported by MaltaToday.

The warning was made by Enemalta’s executive chairman Ryan Fava in a letter asking the Environment and Resources Authority to exempt the project from the legal obligation to conduct an environmental impact assessment.

Borg said that Malta’s influx of labour migrants over the last 11 years had come at the expense of necessary infrastructural investment. “It will the environment that pays the price,” she said.

She accused the Labour administration of not planning for the energy demand required by Malta’s population increase, so much so that a 60MW plant is needed as a back-up. “Its urgency is such that Enemalta is requesting that no EIA is carried out. But government should have had a serious, long-term plan that anticipated the increase in population, much as it is now planning for a spike in demand for the summer of 2024.”

The new plant, which can be used for a maximum of 500 hours a year, will consist of two containerized gasoil-fired generators located within the boundaries of the existing Delimara power station. The plant is expected to cost Enemalta €46 million over a period of 27 months.

While Enemalta had foreseen a steady 3.5% increase in energy demand over the next few years, the 14% spike in demand, which contributed to the power outrage in July 2023, was completely unforeseen.

Enemalta is now anticipating “that demand in the summer of 2024 will rise even higher” and if the emergency plant is not in place by next summer, “it will not be able to guarantee the security of electricity supply.”

The situation was unprecedented and was not even foreseen in a study conducted by Electricite de France in 2021, which projected that a peak demand of 644 MW would not be reached before 2029.

But this peak was already surpassed in July 2024 when peak demand reached 683 MW. In his letter Fava partly blamed the unforeseen spike in demand on climate change “which has created extreme weather conditions, including long periods of extreme heat during the summer months,” while adding that “such conditions will be experienced again in the summer of 2024.”

Ministry reacts

In a short statement on Tuesday night, the environment ministry said it was always clear that the government will increase its energy capacity in moments of high demand.

"That is why the environmental process is being followed as required by the European Union in such cases. So much so that this case has been brought for the approval of the ERA board, which agreed unanimously with this."

The ministry hit out at the Opposition, arguing that its only plan to increase energy capacity was to liberalise the market and raise utility bills. "Meanwhile, a Labour government accelerates investment in electricity distribution and will continue to invest in this way."