Widespread power cuts hit Malta and Gozo after LNG plant interruption

Updated at 7:20pm with Enemalta statement 

Large parts of Malta and Gozo were hit by power cuts on Wednesday evening, with outages reported across a wide swathe of the islands.

The affected areas included Qormi, Żebbuġ, Birkirkara, Marsaskala, Żejtun, St Paul’s Bay, Mosta, San Ġwann and Mellieħa, while large parts of Gozo were also without electricity.

A number of localities saw power restored shortly after.

An Enemalta spokesperson is expected to provide an explanation for the power cuts soon.  

The Enemalta outage map showed power outages across the islands

The latest widespread disruption comes just days after Gozo suffered a major power crisis in which thousands of residents and tourists were left without electricity after two of the three 33kV high-voltage feeders supplying the island from Malta developed faults.

The August outage left large parts of Gozo without power for hours, with Enemalta deploying mobile generators while technical teams worked to locate and repair the faults. One of Gozo’s two distribution centres was also affected.

The island’s electricity supply was eventually restored progressively after one of the cable faults in Xewkija was repaired, while works continued on a second fault along the cable route in Comino.

The latest outage also follows a summer of repeated electricity failures across Malta.

In July, thousands of households were affected by a series of outages during a severe heatwave, with disruptions reported in numerous localities. Electricity demand reached a record 741MW on 21 July, up from the previous peak of 663MW recorded in 2023.

The government subsequently announced compensation for households and businesses that had experienced outages lasting more than six hours. Enemalta said the failures demonstrated the need to continue strengthening vulnerable sections of the electricity distribution network.

Enemalta has repeatedly pointed to investment in the distribution network, saying €141 million was invested between 2023 and 2026. The company said this included new substations, transformer upgrades, new low-voltage feeders and more than 270 kilometres of medium-voltage cables.

Yet the latest widespread outage comes as the government faces renewed questions over whether Malta’s electricity infrastructure is keeping pace with demand.

Prime Minister Robert Abela on Wednesday rejected the argument that Malta’s soaring energy demand was primarily linked to population growth, instead attributing the increase to climate change.

Abela noted that peak energy demand had risen from 417MW a decade ago to 741MW during this summer’s heatwave — an increase of almost 80%.

He argued that the increase could not simply be attributed to population growth, pointing to National Statistics Office figures showing that net migration had fallen by a third over the past three years.

Abela also defended Malta’s continued economic and tourism growth, while saying the government was working to ensure that tourism did not place excessive pressure on residential communities.

His comments come against the backdrop of repeated failures across the electricity network this summer, including the major Gozo outage and widespread interruptions in Malta during July.

The recurring disruptions have raised questions over whether the country’s infrastructure is capable of handling the increasingly high electricity demand during periods of extreme heat, particularly as Malta continues to experience rapid economic and tourism growth.

For now, residents across several Maltese and Gozitan localities are once again facing interruptions to their electricity supply, with the extent and duration of Wednesday’s outages still developing.

Enemalta statement

In a statement on Wednesday evening, Enemalta said electricity supply is being restored following generation interruption.

“Enemalta is in the process of restoring electricity supply to affected areas following an interruption on one of the LNG plant earlier this evening which resulted in the loss of around 200MW of generation,” it said. 

The sudden drop in generation required temporary supply interruptions in a number of areas to protect the stability of the wider electricity system while emergency generation was brought online.

Emergency plants are now operating and power is being restored progressively.

Enemalta is working to restore normal supply as quickly and safely as possible. The exact cause of the generation interruption is still being established