Enemalta says it repaired 45 faults on its distribution network, 19 still to be fixed

Enemalta has repaired 45 faults on its distribution network over the past days and is working to fix another 19, the company said on Monday.

“Enemalta’s technical teams have been working incessantly for the last seven days to repair the unprecedented number of underground cable faults caused by the high temperatures of the heatwave that hit Malta,” the company said.

It noted that 64 high voltage cable faults had developed on its distribution network. “Some 10,000 hours of work have already been dedicated to the complex works involved in repairing these cables,” the company said.

Hundreds of families experienced more power outages on Sunday night as Malta continued to be gripped by a heatwave.

Enemalta said its engineers and technicians were dispatched to another five sites where to repair faults that developed on its high voltage network on Sunday night.

It said in most of these outages, the impacted areas were re-energised through alternative cable connections in less than three hours.

However, Enemalta said in parts of Dingli, the electricity supply could not be restored before the required repairs were completed during the same night. In parts of Zejtun, electricity supply was restored through a standby power generating system, while another localised area in the locality should be reconnected to the grid as soon as ongoing repairs are completed.

Enemalta said that during one of Sunday night’s incidents, a cable termination fault in a substation let out some smoke. The cable’s protection systems immediately isolated the faulty section of the cable, to avoid further damage to the substation.

“No other equipment besides the cable termination was damaged during this incident and Enemalta engineers arrived on site within 15 minutes of the incident, along with Civil Protection Department firefighters,” the company said, adding that the faulty termination was being repaired.

Engineer Steve Farrugia, Enemalta’s Executive Director Distribution, said the company was deploying more technical teams to repair faults.

“With additional resources, we are trying to complete as many repairs as possible to restore the network’s flexibility and resilience in the shortest time possible. Works will continue at all times of day and night until all faults are repaired,” he said.

Customers experiencing such difficulties can inform Enemalta by calling the Company’s customer care team on 8007 2224 or by calling the Servizz.Gov Helpline 153.

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