Down wind: obituary for a stillborn project

Never having seen the light of day, the 2008 plans for 19 wind turbines in the proximity of a bird colony have been unceremoniously dumped by the Labour administration on Thursday’s meeting of the MEPA board.

A surreal atmosphere reigned at the meeting that rejected the wind farm in Sikka l-Bajda, an offshore reef 1.5 kms away from the Rdum il-Madonna and five kms from Ghadira.

It was one of those rare occasions where the developer, in this case the government, chose to proceed with an application presented by a previous government, but did not care to defend it. Instead of withdrawing the application, Labour chose to let the application of its predecessor to sink under the weight of 1,800 pages of environmental studies, and satisfy its policy decision to scrap wind energy.

It was left to the bureaucrat, representing the energy ministry at the meeting, to say that the government had a plan B, solar energy, to the project for wind turbines, which would have provided nearly half of Malta’s 10% renewable energy target.  

No adjustments were proposed to reduce the impact of the turbines. such as reducing the number of turbines or opting for smaller rotors

And instead of downplaying the environmental impacts as so often happens when money-spinning private projects are proposed, the experts who conducted environmental studies did their job of exposing the full environmental impact of the projects.

At times they even accentuated the impact comparing the height of the turbines to that of the Portomaso tower, going as far as detailing the gruesome fate of bats “exploding” in the air due to air pressure changes. 

Despite 135 minutes of the meeting taken up by EIA consultants, the EIA itself was not completed – let alone issued for public consultation as is normally the case before board meetings on a final decision is taken.

It was MEPA chairman Vince Cassar in his role as acting director for environment, decided that the continued pursuing of “expensive” EIA procedures was superfluous, noting that this would not have added value to the decision making process. In a letter in September 2014 to the Sustainable Energy and Water Conservation Unit, Cassar pointed out the “unacceptable impacts on nearby seabird colonies and Natura 2000 sites.”

The government did not object to this recommendation, leaving the EIA unfinished. But on MaltaToday’s request the studies conducted so far have been published online.

In view of the impact on bird populations and posidonia meadows, the government’s only option to get the project approved would have been to invoke an “overriding public interest” to justify the probable breach in the EU Habitats directives.

In future, it will be interesting to see whether such an “overriding public interest” will be invoked with regard to land reclamation projects when these are given the go-ahead, impacting posidonia meadows.

Pullicino defends legacy

The only drama at the MEPA meeting was the passionate defence of the Sikka l-Bajda project by former resources minister George Pullicino, who had linked Malta’s renewable energy targets with the wind farm project.

Recently ‘demoted’ to the shadow backbench on the subject of early education, the former minister overshadowed his own party’s new shadow minister on energy, Marthese Portelli, who called on MEPA to postpone any decision on Sikka l-Bajda until the government’s renewable energy plan is published.  

He had made little progress in increasing renewable energy potential in other areas, partly due to the inertia in the sector before 2008. But it was he who questioned the EIA consultants for not referring to the impact of 50-metre high oil tankers, which already use Sikka l-Bajda for bunkering activities, on bird colonies and posidonia meadows.

Under Ninu Zammit, renewable energy was definitely not a priority before 2008. A 2005 report by British energy experts Mott Macdonald to develop a land-based wind farm by 2010, was largely ignored and only tabled in parliament two years later. Sikka l-Bajda was identified as “the best site” for an offshore wind farm, even if this site was deemed to compare poorly with similar wind farms in the North Sea. 

The Prime Minister went as far as to question the feasibility of any large-scale wind farms in his 2005 budget speech. “Although the government does not completely exclude the development of offshore wind farms, the volume of energy these can produce is minimal. Yet since technology in this sector is evolving fast, what is impossible today can become possible tomorrow,” he had said.

In 2006, his scepticism on made way for misplaced optimism on deep-water offshore wind projects when the technology did not exist to operate such wind farms at the depths it proposed. The Malta Resources Authority excluded all sites less than 20 metres deep after the Malta Tourism Authority protested that all near-shore sites were no-go areas.

The government’s draft policy on renewable energy, published in August 2006, not only excluded land-based wind farms because of “enormous visual and other impacts”, but pointed out that the disadvantages of developing a near-shore wind farm at Sikka l-Bajda could outweigh its advantages. The policy claimed that Sikka l-Bajda would only produce 2.1% of Malta’s energy needs and the option was shelved “because of the impact of such a project on current economic activity”.

Gonzi’s U-turn

But in October 2008 Gonzi announced a near-shore wind farm at the Sikka l-Bajda reef, less than 2km from Malta’s largest bird conservation programme, to produce 4% of Malta’s energy needs: double the figure mentioned in the 2006 energy policy. 

Physicist Edward Mallia was sceptical but not dismissive of the wind farm lodestar. The government had first ignored Mallia’s advice to consider the north shore of Gozo as a Plan B – it was only in 2012 that an application was presented to commence studies on wind energy in Gozo. 

Another site proposed by Mallia, the Wied Rini mast farm in Bahrija which already hosts 20 disused telecommunication masts, was later accepted by the government in 2011, alongside another land based wind farm in Hal-Far. Both applications are still pending.

The offshore location preferred by Mallia was a strip on the north shore of Gozo stretching eastward from Ras il-Qbajjar towards Ras il-Qala, stopping at Mistra Rocks just south of Wied San Blas. 

Although Mallia was involved in the drafting of the report on the viability of Sikka l-Bajda, the physicist wanted the advisory committee to consider alternative sites. “The problems associated with using Sikka l-Bajda for an offshore wind farm, while by no means insurmountable, suggested that the committee should, by way of providing valuable advice, look for possible specific alternatives which might have fewer problems,” Mallia wrote.

Had his advice been taken it may well have been more difficult to ditch wind energy at this stage.

From wind to solar

Malta needs 2.7 square kilometres of solar panel infrastructure to reach its EU targets – an area three times the size of Valletta and slightly smaller than Comino.

MEPA has so far received 72 expressions of interest for solar farms in quarries and rooftops, targeting some 33% of the projected PV capacity necessary to meet Malta’s 2020 target.

This raises the question of how Malta will reach the EU-set 10% target without wind farms, by relying exclusively on solar farms. The draft policy excludes the development of solar farms on open fields and expresses a preference for rooftops, quarries, government buildings and large water reservoirs lying Outside Development Zone.  

But the policy allows solar farms on greenhouses, something which could create a loophole for the development of solar farms in the open countryside.

MEPA is already faced with applications to develop new greenhouses covering large areas of agricultural land to produce solar energy. One such application for new green houses covers 11,000 square metres of land.

What is sure is that a political decision has been taken to scrap wind for solar energy as confirmed to this newspaper in October.

In an article penned last October Edward Mallia linked the decision to abandon wind energy in favour of solar energy to the over-abundance of energy Malta will have at night after the opening of the new Electrogas power station, which will complement the new Chinese-owned BWSC plant. “The sun, it was said, shines during the day (surprise, surprise); the wind blows at night and the power at night quite frequently slips below 200 MW. But with the proposed 200MW gas turbine, which cannot be turned down to deliver less than 180MW without loss of efficiency, the Sicily interconnector and the BWSC contribution, we do not need any help from wind,” he wrote.