The Labour Party yesterday highlighted the fact that no one has as yet purchased the report on the data collected from wind studies at L-Aħrax tal-Mellieħa, saying this pointed to lack of interest in the project.
The technical and voluminous report, which has a price tag of €3,000 as a result of the work and expense involved in compiling it, shows that the proposed offshore wind farm at Sikka l-Bajda is viable.
In a statement, Labour environment spokesman Leo Brincat said no one had purchased the detailed report, evidence that there was no interest in the project. The government’s plans were not being taken seriously, he insisted.
Mr Brincat noted that while last February Resources Minister George Pullicino had claimed wind turbines were technically viable at Is-Sikka l-Bajda, the government, even after publishing the wind data report, declared that more studies were needed and the information in the report may not be conclusive.
He was clearly referring to an interview published a fortnight ago by The Sunday Times with the engineers from the University of Malta who are studying the viability of the wind farm proposal which would provide electricity for some 40,000 households.
They had said the data collected so far showed that the proposed wind farm was viable and they had applied for two more years of wind studies to reduce the margin of error in the results they had achieved when extrapolating the data to cover a 20-year period – the typical lifetime of an offshore wind farm.
Moreover, they had said the extra data would continue being collected so as not to waste time until the various studies as part of the project’s environmental impact assessment were concluded.
Mr Brincat predicted the project would not get off the ground within the next five years and that by the next general election, the government would still be carrying out its studies. Malta, he said, was being ridiculed in the eyes of the world and such delays under the pretext of studies were denying people the use of this alternative source of energy while extra millions were being spent on oil imports.
The experts had said constructing an offshore wind farm was a lengthy process. Similar projects abroad showed that a wind farm takes between six and eight years to construct, including time for studies and commissioning.
The Malta project, estimated to cost around €300 million, is planned to be in place by 2016, four years before EU countries must generate 10 per cent of their energy through renewable sources. The wind farm alone would cover just over three per cent of this target.
This project forms part of the National Renewable Energy Action Plan, which aims to generate electricity not only from wind but also from the sun.