Electricity demand shoots up by 100MW

Malta’s electricity grid reached a peak load of 612MW on 8 July, an almost 100MW increase when compared to the same period last year.

“Enemalta has documented this demand amidst Europe's first significant heatwave of the summer and the generation sources are adequately satisfying the demand. Peak electricity grid load is the greatest amount of energy distributed through the national electricity network to Enemalta’s customers at any one time,” an Enemalta spokesperson told MaltaToday.

In the night between Monday and Tuesday, a number of localities across Malta and Gozo recorded power cuts, with many having electricity restored after a couple of minutes. Parts of Tarxien were worst affected, with some areas left three hours without any electricity.

Enemalta Executive Chairman Ryan Fava, explained that, compared to last year, electricity demand peaked earlier, as a similar demand was recorded in 2024 on 19 July.

“While this increase is noteworthy and a reflection of how the earlier rise in temperature is affecting demand, Enemalta has the necessary generation capacity to meet its customers' demand,” he said.

A spokesperson also said ongoing investments in the distribution network are enhancing Enemalta's capacity to address situations where high voltage levels cause faults.

“Enemalta is thus better positioned to restore power to areas benefiting from these infrastructural improvements. Notably, with the commissioning of over 140km of new underground cables in the past two years, Enemalta has efficiently restored supply to customers impacted by faults, owing to the increased flexibility and resilience of the distribution system resulting from these developments,” a spokesperson said.

The spokesperson also said teams across all departments have been working hard to prepare for the ever-increasing temperatures, and Enemalta are in a far better position to switch clients on to alternative sources in cases of faults.

“In the instances where such flexibility is not yet available, Enemalta resorts to alternative sources to alleviate the situation until the fault is identified and fixed,” Fava said.