Power plants’ time is up

Three of the four plants at Marsa power station have exceeded the 20,000 operational hours they were allowed under a derogation Malta obtained when it joined the European Union.

This means that the Marsa power station is currently not operating in line with the environmental permit issued by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

In a statement Mepa said it had been notified by Enemalta of the development and the authority was “assessing the situation and appropriate actions”.

The authority said the actions included additional mitigation measures Enemalta may take to reduce pollution to make up for the non-compliance with the Integrated Pollution Prevention Control (IPPC) environmental permit.

Mepa granted the Marsa power station an IPPC permit in 2009 and the conditions included emission limit values for dust, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.

Marsa power station will be completely shut down when the Delimara power station extension becomes operational and the interconnector cable with Sicily is ready, sometime in 2013.

In the EU, permitted emission limit values must comply with the Large Combustion Plants Directive but Malta had applied the limited lifetime derogation.

In a statement later, Enemalta said that currently, the generating plant at Marsa provided about 45 per cent of the total electricity generating capacity on the Maltese islands and should this power station be shut down now, there would be insufficient capacity to meet the full demand for electricity.

In fact, it said, it was investing in a power station extension and interconnector with Sicily to be able to close off the old Marsa power station.

Its overriding obligation was to maintain the secure supply of electricity in the Maltese islands and it was this that had prevented it from shutting down the three plants on the utilisation of the 20,000 hour derogation, the corporation said.

The operation of the plant at Marsa would be reduced considerably with the commissioning of the new 144MW plant at Delimara in 2012. In fact, plants M1 and M2 would be taken out of service in May 2012.

It said the new Delimara plant was unfortunately being commissioned late as a result of the Labour Party-led protests and objections during its tendering and planning processes.

The Marsa power station would be finally decommissioned once the interconnector to Italy was in service, Enemalta said, adding that despite delays in the interconnector’s tendering process due to the elimination of all tendering entities in the first call, contracts for the interconnector had now been signed and work was well underway.

In the meantime, the corporation had over the last five years taken important measures to reduce emissions of both SO2 and NOx from the boilers at Marsa, it added.