Despite number of power cut reports, Enemalta says most disruptions have been resolved

Enemalta continued to carry out repair works to restore electricity supply to customers impacted by eight network difficulties registered on Thursday night.

It said most of the high voltage network disruptions registered on Thursday night have already been resolved, with customers reconnected to the grid through alternative network connections in the same areas within a few hours.

Another supply interruption in parts of Rabat and Mdina was also restored early on Friday morning. Customers impacted by network faults in a localised part of Msida, Vittoriosa, Cospicua, Kalkara and Zabbar will be reconnected to the grid soon as ongoing repairs are completed today.

Workers are also tackling another Friday morning network difficulty causing supply disruptions in another part of Zabbar and part of Marsascala.

Specialised teams of engineers, technicians, cable fault locators and cable jointers, excavation contractors and other workers continued working throughout the night to repair more than six underground cable faults caused by earlier network disturbances.

Enemalta said in most cases when such cable faults are registered, electricity supply is restored through alternative connections supplying the same area before actual cable repairs commence. In other situations, multiple cable faults in the same area may prohibit such reconnection before one or more of the faults are repaired.

To repair underground cables, the exact location of the damaged section of the cables buried beneath road surfaces need to be pinpointed, so that the cable can then be uncovered to replace the damaged section. This process takes several hours, before the repaired cable can be tested and reconnected, so that it can continue to be used to provide electricity to customers.

A number of localities across Malta and Gozo have been experiencing pro-longed power cuts, with some affected worse than others.

Enemalta CEO jonathan Cardona has blamed cable faults for the power outages, and not overloads. “Consumption has been increasing, with a new record of 604MW at peak hours. This is the first time that output went beyond 600MW.”

But the national system is capable of providing well over 600MW. “We can reach 830MW, so there’s a good margin.”

Cardona said that soaring temperatures have caused roads to heat up, and this heat is bringing out certain latent defects in underground cables. “In this circumstance, temperatures increased in a short amount of time, so the faults also came out in a short amount of time,” he said.

During a technical briefing on Thursday, Enemalta said it could not guarantee there will be no more power cuts as the heatwave over Malta persists.

Claims by Nationalist MP Mark Anthony Sammut, that Enemalta has been intentionally disconnecting various areas from electricity to prevent the system from collapsing were refuted.

Any further update will be communicated through the Enemalta Facebook page.