Blackouts 'do happen'

Two former Enemalta chairmen have come to the corporation's defence after Good Friday's blackout insisting problems "do happen".

Robert Ghirlando, a former chairman and University lecturer in mechanical engineering, said engineers had the difficult task of predicting fluctuations in demand to determine how much electricity is generated by the power stations.

It would be wasteful, he added, to have all the power stations' machines running at one go.

"The problem on Good Friday was not with spare capacity, because a number of engines were switched off. The problem was with spinning reserve, which is the extra electricity in the grid over and above the base load," he said.

According to a report compiled by Enemalta's chief executive, on Good Friday the spinning reserve amounted to 5MW, which was not enough to cater for a sudden increase of more than 11MW in the space of 10 minutes.

When asked whether a 5MW spinning reserve could have been an error of judgment by duty engineers, Prof. Ghirlando said he would have to see all the facts before reaching that conclusion.

"It may have been an error of judgment but these are very difficult decisions to make because they are predicting future increases and various factors have to be taken into consideration," he said, insisting that "these things do happen".

Similar arguments were made by Forestals owner and former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone.

"Considering what Enemalta is working with, the number of hours without electricity does not constitute a bad record at all," he said, explaining that restarting the power station after a blackout took time.

"I am not an apologist for Enemalta and power outages annoy people and disrupt business but these are things that happen. One immediate solution, which was first proposed in 2005, is to have an interconnector cable with Sicily. However, with government, things take time to develop," Mr Tabone said.