Enemalta explains Saturday power cut

Enemalta yesterday explained the circumstances that led to the power failure in parts of Naxxar and Mosta last Saturday while the Malta Song for Europe Festival was in progress.

The corporation said it has four sources which supply electricity to the affected areas. On January 19 one of these sources, which consists of a high voltage cable in the Telgha t'Alla w Ommu developed a fault and Enemalta said it was not allowed by the Malta Transport Authority to repair it because the road in question had recently been resurfaced.

However, Enemalta said, the ADT failed to provide a culvert in which an alternative cable could have been installed as was agreed before the fault occurred. And to date the culvert has still not been completed by the ADT, leaving Enemalta short of a vital source of alternative supply to parts of Naxxar and Mosta, the corporation said.

On February 19, another cable circuit from the remaining three in service suffered a fault which, after investigations, was found to result from damage to the cable by a contractor working on a new road near Mosta Technopark along the main road leading from the Technopark to Naxxar.

The cable in question was in fact damaged earlier but failed on Saturday around noon when the area was flooded. Enemalta said it was not informed that the cable had been damaged.

It was therefore left with only two available sources to supply parts of Mosta and Naxxar at a time when demand was at its peak.

It resulted that in the evening the two sources alone could not cater for the demand and Enemalta had to monitor them continually and shed load accordingly to avoid overloading them and causing widespread blackouts.

Enemalta said that while it wanted to apologise to the public in general for the inconvenience, it felt it had to explain the facts in order to allow the public to decide for itself who was really responsible for the interruptions in the supply of electricity.