The energy debate in Malta has always been clouded by misconceptions, mainly brought about by a lack of appreciation by the public and politicians of the cost impacts resulting from the country’s small size and low economies of scale, together with the resultant negative comparisons with energy prices and reliability in continental systems.
In my four years working with Enemalta, I couldn’t help but notice that what was being discussed was of little substance and never truly addressed the real situation of energy in Malta.
This might be a symptom of partisan politics but it is also a result of the public not appreciating what goes on behind the switch. Many times, electricity is taken for granted and, after years and years of cheap rates, consumers lost any concept of what energy is really worth.
Generating energy costs money, apart from the obvious manpower there is one, highly fluctuating factor: fuel.
Malta is not blessed with any natural resources and even if many say that the most important resource of all, the sun, is abundantly available in this country, there simply is no space (or sufficient funding) to build viable solar farms.
Buying electricity from a liberalised EU market makes more sense than government-owned monopoly suppliers
At present, Enemalta has to meet demand for electricity which varies throughout the day and seasonally. Put simply, the peak load in summer is about 430MW whereas the peak in winter is about 370MW and the average through most of the year is about 320MW or less.
During the night, the load varies from 160MW in winter to 270MW in the summer months.
The amount of electricity produced by the power stations must be exactly the same as the demand at all times. This requires quite a flexible generating plant as well as well trained operators.
Today, Enemalta has a total generating capacity of 620MW, with 450MW at Delimara, and, by the end of this year, when the interconnector is scheduled to be ready and the old Marsa power plant shut down, it will increase to 690MW. That is amply sufficient to meet the actual load with a comfortable safety margin.
The new plant at Delimara (150MW), with its 46 per cent efficiency and flexible units, has already shown great results, not just in the reduction of generation costs but also in the lowering of emissions through its advanced abatement technology.
The capabilities of the new plant would have worked perfectly with the interconnector, which would have been used at full capacity (200MW) when the prices are cheaper than the local cost of generation and the rest of the plant would have been used according to the daily needs of the country.
Units bought by the interconnector can be as low as 8c from the European grid and these are units of electricity generated elsewhere, meaning no emissions. The result? Cheaper rates but also cleaner air.
If there ever were any debate about energy in Malta it should not have been about fuel oil, gasoil or gas but about when to start the work on a second interconnector.
The recent hype about switching to natural gas and gas being a means of diversification of energy sources fails to address some very important aspects.
Malta will be replacing a mix of fuel oil (HFO and diesel), which can be purchased on the international market from a large number of sources, by another fuel, LNG, which will be purchased on a long-term contract from one single supplier.
Even if, and when, a pipeline is built and Malta starts to purchase gas from Italy instead, it will effectively be from a single source. Furthermore, a potentially worrying thing about the proposed LNG supply is that Malta will be relying on a State oil company, SOCAR, which, given the nature of the Azerbaijan government, cannot be said to be a particularly secure source.
All it needs is a whiff of the Arab spring or problems with its neighbour, Russia, for some possibly quite drastic changes to come about.
One could argue that the electricity interconnector is exactly the same as a pipeline and, hence, limited to a single source. However, this is also not true.
Electricity is available from a number of sources on the Italian electricity market including large amounts of wind and PV renewable sources. Also, the electricity market is much more liberalised than the Italian gas market, which, in reality, is dominated by a few major suppliers and gas sources.
The one glaring advantage of the electricity interconnector is the absolute elimination of emissions associated with the electricity imported from Malta.
While there is no doubt that gas is a cleaner fuel to HFO, it is still a fossil fuel with about 70 per cent of the CO2 emissions of HFO. Its combustion still emits an amount of NOx and particulates, albeit much less than HFO, but much more, from a purely local perspective, than would be emitted from the interconnector, which would be zero.
A second interconnector would have offered another link to the European grid, further increasing security of supply and giving Malta the opportunity to buy all its energy needs from mainland Europe at cheaper rates which the island can never aspire to.
All the preparatory work for a second link has already been laid out by Enemalta and a second interconnector would have eliminated the need for an unsightly FSU docked permanently at Marsaxlokk and yet another plant in the south of Malta, which still produces CO2 and other harmful emissions.
A final point has to be made on the loss of sovereignty that seems to worry many people when speaking about energy.
While it is true that, in the future, the gas plants will be physically located in Malta this will not mean that this country will retain its sovereignty.
All things considered, buying electricity from a liberalised EU market while avoiding emissions makes more sense than buying gas and electricity from a couple of foreign government-owned monopoly suppliers like the Azerbaijan state oil company and China Power.