Malta continues to be one of the EU countries that seem highly unlikely to meet the renewable energy targets set by 2020. This has been a perennial cry, both under the Nationalist administrations and, now, under the Labour government. Malta’s target has been set at 10 per cent. So far, it is obtaining 3.8 per cent of all its energy consumption from renewables.
In the run-up to the 2013 election, the government had committed itself to re-consider the “mix” of energy sources to achieve the target. It now appears that it is focusing all its efforts on a mix of use of photovoltaics, solar, thermal and biofuels. This fits in with its long-held scepticism about the feasibility of wind energy and its wish for the country to focus on solar power.
Given its agreement with China’s Shanghai Electric to develop and build renewable energy infrastructure in Europe, a move that holds considerable attraction for China’s debt-fuelled solar energy industry, the focus on solar energy sits conveniently with the government’s new-found commercial contacts with China.
Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi announced six months ago that Malta needed 2.7 square kilometres of solar farms (in this overdeveloped country, not an inconsiderable space) to produce five per cent of its 2020 targets, with the balance coming from biogas, waste and photovoltaic panels on top of roofs of residential and commercial buildings.
However, the bottom line is that, like so much of Malta’s administrative effort, the government’s attempts to move matters forward appear to be hampered by poor decision-making, inefficient project management and lack of drive and political will.
The formation of solar farms to harvest energy from the sun, including the possibility of encouraging investment in communal solar farms for those unable to put up their own solar panels, for example flat-dwellers, should be tackled more energetically. This is Malta’s most accessible of renewable source. Malta must tap into it.
The European Commission has warned Malta that it could face infringement proceedings if it continues to lag behind in meeting its 2020 renewable energy targets. It has warned that if the country does not make efforts to reach the targets, it does not rule out the possibility of taking legal action.
The Auditor General has estimated that the notional costs of failing to meet the renewable energy targets as a result of having, in the short term, to buy ‘green credits’ from countries with excess capacity and, in the longer term, entering into new cooperation agreements with other countries to supply our needs, would amount to about €400 million, a not insignificant cost.
This would be further exacerbated by payment of other penalties and expenses as a result of failure to meet targets in other areas (such as curbing emissions). These could therefore be very expensive missed renewable energy targets.
Malta has had several years in which to come up with answers. Other nations have made considerable progress in the same period. The technology is now largely tried and tested. There is no practical excuse for such a lack of progress.
There is also a moral imperative for meeting renewable energy targets. As Pope Francis’ ringing encyclical, ‘On the Care of Our Common Home’, reminded us, unsustainable consumption of fossil fuels and climate change are at the root of the EU’s targets for greater renewable means of energy.
It is time for Malta to play its own small part. The government’s failure to act is a cause for concern.
Action is now urgent.