Enemalta has the necessary capacity to meet electricity demand during the summer, according to the Finance Minister.

Tonio Fenech, who is responsible for Enemalta, said the faults that led to the four power cuts in a span of a week were unrelated to the provision of supply.

"Last week, the average energy demand was around 260 megawatts when the country has a capacity of over 500 megawatts," Mr Fenech said when asked whether he could guarantee that the country had the capacity to generate enough electricity.

The four power cuts sent jitters down the spine of football aficionados' intent on following the World Cup on television, businesses and hundreds of households.

"Our aim is to continue ensuring adequate energy supply at all times because our hospitals, factories, schools, businesses, airport, Freeport and other entities need this," Mr Fenech said, adding that faults occurred notwithstanding the regular maintenance carried out on engines and related infrastructure.

There are some incidents which cannot be avoided, he added, like a cable fault, which is buried in the ground.

"You simply cannot maintain a buried cable. There is no quick-fix solution to avoid cable faults and when these happen they have to be fixed or replaced," Mr Fenech said.

However, households in different towns and villages have also had to put up with limited power cuts announced beforehand by Enemalta linked to maintenance.

The scheduled power cuts for tomorrow and the day after make for a long list of roads in different localities. However, Mr Fenech refuted the suggestion that these were part of a strategy to moderate demand and ease the strain on the power stations.

"This is only a supposition and is not backed by facts," he said, insisting Enemalta had the necessary capacity to provide the required demand.

On Friday, a 45-minute power cut hit various localities around Malta in the morning. Enemalta said a fault developed at turbine five at the Marsa power station and it was investigating the cause.

Power cuts occurred on Monday at 5.38 p.m. when one of the Delimara power station turbines malfunctioned and twice on Wednesday, with the morning outage being caused by a tripped cooling water pump at Delimara and the afternoon one by a cable fault.