Enemalta admitted yesterday it did not have enough spare capacity to deal with an abnormal increase in electricity demand on Good Friday, leading to the nation-wide power cut.
The explanation was given in a report presented to the Finance Minister on Monday evening. Ironically, a press statement giving details of the investigation conducted by Enemalta was issued at the same time that a power cut hit Birkirkara and Iklin. Electricity was restored after 45 minutes, with Enemalta saying the blackout was caused by a fault in a cable.
The report, which was not published in its entirety, also blamed ongoing industrial action by the General Workers' Union for the lack of efficient communication between the Delimara and Marsa power stations, which had a "negative impact on the management of the situation".
However, union section secretary Jason Deguara rejected the claim, insisting Enemalta's electricity generation unit also employed engineers who were not GWU members and were not following industrial action directives.
"Our actions could have never disrupted communication between engineers," Mr Deguara said when contacted.
Last Friday's blackout was the second in 11 days and the fourth in almost a year.
According to an investigation carried out by the chief executive's office, the two power stations were generating 210 mega watts just before the system failed.
There were only five mega watts of reserve energy readily available to cater for any increase in demand.
The Finance Ministry said that in 10 minutes, between 7.27 p.m. and 7.37 p.m., the demand increased by 11.5MW, more than double the spare capacity.
"The precise load can never be calculated and engineers use their professional judgement and historical data to arrive at the right decision. Unfortunately, on Friday, the energy demand increased by such an extent that the turbine was not synchronised in time to avoid a loss in frequency," the ministry said.
A recommendation in the report suggested a reserve capacity of 10MW rather than 5MW to ensure a better security margin in the eventuality that demand increased unexpectedly.
Another recommendation was to ban the possibility of unions issuing directives that limited communication between workers in the corporation's electricity generation section, a proposal described as "unacceptable" by the GWU official.
The "direct responsibility" engineers could have had during the incident also had to "be addressed", the report said.
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech accepted the report and asked for the recommendations to be addressed immediately.
Meanwhile, Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter defended the minister's request for a guarantee for security of supply despite having ruled out such a guarantee under a different minister last year.
"It is realistic for the minister responsible to ask for such an immediate review to be conducted by Enemalta in the light of the recent extraordinary and unrelated events that led to national blackouts," he said, insisting he understood the need to guarantee energy generation "notwithstanding the challenges posed by an aged infrastructure".
However, last year, following another nation-wide power cut, Mr Tranter had said Enemalta could not guarantee the blackout would not happen again.
"The special committee, being set up by Enemalta following the minister's request, will seek to review and recommend any short-term initiatives that could be considered by Enemalta to reduce the incidence of blackouts until the new Delimara extension and the interconnector cable with Sicily come on line," he said. The timing of the investments, he added, left little room for delays.