Electricity bills could be halved if a proposal to build a power plant that works on coal and biomass is taken on board, according to the Norwegian proponents of the project.
Sargas CEO Henrik Fleischer spelt out his company’s promise to deliver the “cleanest energy for the best price” at a half-day seminar yesterday for businessmen, politicians, environmentalists and Enemalta’s highest officials.
However, Mr Fleischer was reluctant to guarantee the low price for the long term because this depended on the type of lease or purchase agreement reached with the government.
He said his company met the Prime Minister about 18 months ago to explain the project and, subsequently, presented Enemalta officials with the findings of a pre-feasibility study.
Sargas wanted to conduct a detailed feasibility study in collaboration with Enemalta but this request seemed to have stalled at the political level, Mr Fleischer said.
A Finance Ministry spokesman said that, prior to committing to such a study, Enemalta carried out its own internal checks of the pre-feasibility study and prepared a report that included a list of concerns.
“This report was completed and it was decided to assess these concerns and the assumptions made by the project developer through an analytical exercise that is under way,” the spokesman said.
The Norwegian company was at the centre of political controversy over the past few weeks after the Labour Party accused the government of ignoring the proposal when it was made 18 months ago after European Commissioner John Dalli put Sargas in touch with the Administration.
Speaking in Parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Law-rence Gonzi hinted at a change in attitude and said a technical team was evaluating the proposal.
The innovative power station proposed by Sargas will also capture the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning process for storage in depleted Danish oil fields in the North Sea.
This means no carbon dioxide will be pumped into the atmosphere and the use of plant waste, such as olive pits, in the fuel mix will make it carbon negative and help the country to meet its EU carbon emission targets.
Despite the use of coal, Mr Fleischer cast away images of the coal mountain that used to characterise the Menqa area in Marsa when the power station there used to burn coal. “The coal will be transported, transferred and stored in a closed environment,” he said, adding it would take the form of “a paste” that included biomass.
A similar plant in Stockholm burns such fuel that includes a 32-per-cent mix of olive pits from Greece.
Sargas said the plant had a potential of producing between 180 and 360 megawatts of electricity and would be built in Korea and shipped to Malta on a barge. The proposal is to dry-dock the barge at Delimara close to the existing power plant.
Business development director Martin Roden repeatedly emphasised that the technology was not new. “It is proven technology,” he said, an obvious jibe at the Delimara power station extension that will start operating next year and is based on prototype technology.
The company said that if feasibility studies started now it would be able to deliver the plant by 2016.
The Labour Party was represented by its spokesmen Leo Brincat, Joe Mizzi and Evarist Bartolo while Nationalist Party backbencher Jesmond Mugliett attended the presentation. No government officials attended though a Finance Ministry spokesman pointed out that “the executive chairman and the chief technical officer of Enemalta Corporation were present for the presentation”.
According to environmentalist Edward Mallia, who attended, the project “merits serious consideration”.
Certain aspects such as the physical space required for the power plant and fuel storage, he added, had to be looked at in greater detail.
“This is not pie in the sky because the technology is being used and the benefits can be verified,” Dr Mallia said.
The disposal of hazardous ash produced by the burning, he said, posed a problem because it had to be exported. The company said it intended exporting the coal ash to concrete producing factories in Europe because it could be mixed in lieu of cement.
Numbers
The plant is estimated to cost between €800m and €900m and will be financed by the company. It will recoup the investment through a power purchase agreement with Enemalta over a period of time.
Sargas says the raw cost of energy from the plant will amount to 7c5 per unit, almost half that produced by the power stations.