Power corrupts. But absolute lack of power kind of sucks…

Personally (though I say so myself) I find the above a much more satisfying proverb than the boring old one about “absolute power corrupting absolutely.”

For one thing, it is undeniably and self-evidently true… though I can’t say the same for the original (I’ve never wielded ‘absolute power’ myself, so what would I know about its corrupting influence?)

Well, we all got the perfect opportunity to confirm the truth of my own version last Thursday: when around 90% of the island ended up (for the umpteenth time) quite literally powerless. And let’s be honest: given the choice between ‘corrupt power’ and ‘no power at all’… how many of us would actually choose the latter?

But first, let us savour the implications of this latest return to the Dark Ages. Another near-nationwide power cut, of the kind we had all moaned about so much on the infamous Good Friday of 2010 (and countless other times before, going all the way back to the 1980s). Only this time round, there was the added bonus of a power cut occurring slap bang in the middle of an early August heatwave… you know, when temperatures  are known to hit the potentially life-threatening 40s.

There is, of course, another difference. Where previous (recent) outages had generally occurred under past Nationalist administrations – much maligned precisely for failing to ever solve this problem in 25 years – the latest examples have all taken place under a Labour government, elected specifically on the promise of an ‘energy revolution’.

Oh, and please note I said ‘examples’ – in the plural – because last Thursday’s power cut was by no means the only one experienced of late in my neck of the woods. I live in the Ta’ Xbiex area, and by my count there have been at least six blackouts (one lasting more than five hours) in the past four weeks alone.

For this reason it took me a while to figure out that the latest example actually extended beyond the confines of the Sliema/St Julian’s/Gzira/Msida nexus. Initially I assumed that – like all the other times – it had been caused by endemic problems in the local distribution network.

We now know, however, that in this instance the problem was caused by the celebrated ‘interconnector’, and therefore had much wider ramifications… including political, but I’ll come to these later. For the moment, the bottom line is this: for whatever reason, and regardless of who happens to be in power… ‘consistent energy provision’ is something Malta just can’t rely on in the early 21st century. And this means that what’s at stake here is nothing less than the credibility of the entire nation. Our collective failure to solve this problem illustrates that – no matter how much we may excel in other spheres – we cannot seem to ever get the most basic, fundamental necessities right.

So perhaps it might be a good idea to take a closer look at this seemingly insoluble problem of ours: if not to actually solve it, at least to figure out why it is so evidently beyond our capabilities.

As indicated earlier, inconsistent energy supply has been the hallmark of practically every administration of government we’ve ever had (at least, in my lifetime). Frequent power cuts were the order of the day back in the 1980s… and while the construction of the new Delimara plant in the early 1990s made a difference for a while, the same problem resurfaced to characterise the final years of the Gonzi administration, too.

This is partly why the energy question came to dominate the 2013 election campaign. Having proven such a serious credibility blow to the Nationalists, the Labour Party was keen to present itself as the only party with the know-how to actually make a difference in this troublesome sector.

And yet, two and a half years into the present Muscat administration, the same problem evidently persists. Last Thursday it was because of the interconnector… all the other times, it was because of (to quote from a recent Enemalta statement) “a number of cable faults which affected the network flexibility to provide the required services...”

Immediately, a small problem swims into view. The second of these explanations was also the one given for most (but not all – some had been attributed to Marsa’s ailing Boiler 8, since decommissioned) of the minor outages that used to regularly occur before the last election, and have continued ever since.

Back in the days when Minister Tonio Fenech described Labour’s energy plan as something out of ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Enemalta used to regularly insist that the problem did not concern electricity generation at all – bearing in mind that Marsa was still functioning back then – but rather, distribution.

That there were serious problems with Marsa was also a fact: but the urgent situation facing the country in 2013 consisted of: a) a faulty distribution network, and; b) the imminent decommissioning of the old power station, in the full knowledge that the Delimara plant, on its own, could not fully take over the load.

So what happened? We were all treated to a fully-fledged pre-electoral energy debate which failed spectacularly to ever address the existing problems within the distribution network: concentrating only on energy production, which wasn’t even considered an issue at the time. Labour unveiled its plans for a new power station, complete with floating gas storage tanks in Marsaxlokk… and the only allusion to the other, more pressing problem was a vague promise, included in the manifesto, to “strengthen and improve the electricity distribution system” specifically to reduce power cuts.

Yet it is only now – three years later – that we are suddenly told of a plan to build two new distribution centres “to improve the quality of service to customers in nearby localities, including St Julian’s, Sliema, Gzira and Ta’ Xbiex”… which will be commissioned in 2016.  The same Enemalta statement also informs us that construction of these two distribution centres had actually commenced in 2014, but was not completed “due to a number of difficulties”.

This means that – not unlike certain other aspects of the Labour Party’s energy plan – this project is actually two years behind schedule. It also means that, as a result of this delay, there is now no hope at all that existing problems with energy distribution will be solved before next year at the earliest.

Now let’s look at Thursday’s blackout… which followed a similar pattern, even if it had nothing to do with distribution. Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi explained that the problem was caused by a ‘fault on the Sicilian side’ of the recently-inaugurated interconnector… significantly adding that this interconnector was “supplying the system with around 190MW of electricity, equivalent to almost 50 per cent of the domestic demand” at the time.

“This incident shows that Malta cannot depend for its base load on imported electricity, and has to have enough generating power domestically,” he said.

Hmm. Hang on, Dr Mizzi, but aren’t you leaving out a small detail there? Could you also tell us exactly WHY Malta was relying on imported electricity for almost half its energy needs – directly contradicting your own government’s declared energy policy – at a time of year when demand is traditionally at its highest?

I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that the real reason concerns a delay in the construction of the promised new power station, which (before the election) we were told would be up and running “within two years”. Three years down the line, it has not materialised. And Marsa has since been decommissioned… meaning that we are now forced, specifically because of your government’s failure to deliver the new power station on time, to rely on a Delimara plant which we all know can’t actually cope with the country’s needs.

That, in a nutshell, is why Malta was importing such a vast proportion of its energy from Sicily last Thursday… instead of producing it locally, as promised, by means of a power station that should technically already be one year old.

So on both counts – energy production and distribution – responsibility for Malta’s current multiple energy failures can be exclusively laid at the present government’s door. Labour has so far failed in precisely the same area that the Nationalists had failed in their own day… leaving us all darkling.

Having said this, the same concatenation of events doesn’t exactly say very much for the Opposition’s equivalent energy plans. For where missed deadlines forced the present administration to reluctantly depend on the Sicily interconnector… the same dependence actually formed the bulk of the Nationalist Party’s entire energy policy, as unveiled before the last election.

According to the PN manifesto – authored, it will be remembered, by current Opposition leader Simon Busuttil – the interconnector would “provide up to 70% of the country’s electricity needs, without producing any emissions.”

Well, I suppose it’s just as well the interconnector wouldn’t produce any emissions… seeing as it didn’t produce any electricity this week, either. But now that we have all seen how this facility couldn’t handle the provision of just 50% of the country’s demand… can you just imagine what sort of energy crisis we would be experiencing now, had this plan actually been carried out to the letter...making Malta exclusively dependent on the interconnector for 70% of its energy requirements?

This, by the way, was the grand energy strategy of a party whose leader also expressed grave reservations about “China having its finger on our light switch”. And yet, when it came to entrusting the Sicilians with a much tighter grip on the same switch, Busuttil seemed to have no qualms of any kind whatsoever.

So let’s try and work this one out: the Opposition leader was ‘uncomfortable’ with a Chinese corporation owning 33% of Malta’s energy infrastructure… but then, had absolutely no problems with the prospect of Sicily providing a staggering 70% of our electricity, leaving Malta in a situation where it would have no control if (or when, as happened last Thursday) the provision happens to be suspended. 

Now, what was that about ‘Alice in Wonderland’ again?

Oh, and it bears mentioning also that the PN manifesto didn’t even allude to the distribution network at all. It simply ignored what Enemalta itself has repeatedly described as the root cause of the vast majority of Malta’s energy problems… while failing utterly to provide a solution to the one problem it did try to tackle.

This, then, is the extent of Malta’s current energy crisis. And as you can see, it goes far beyond the sort of logistical problem that can be solved by calling in a technician or engineer. What we are talking about here is the total failure of Malta’s political duopoly to ever produce a single, functional national energy policy of any kind whatsoever.

I admit this brings us no closer to a solution… oh, hang on, maybe it does. Tell you what: instead of talking endlessly about ‘building new power stations’ and ‘strengthening distribution centres’… how about we decommission our failed political system instead… and create a new one in its place that doesn’t rely too heavily on a pair of utterly clueless political parties?

Hey, it was just an idea. And you never know: unlike Malta’s energy sector in the 21st century, it might actually work...