Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi defended Enemalta Corporation's stand that it could not be held responsible for the consequences of Monday's nationwide power cut.

Expert sources said the power cut could have cost Malta between €2 and €3 million, adding that the sectors mostly affected would have been retail and, to a lesser extent, offices.

However, they warned one should not generalise, pointing out that electricity was not suspended in all areas throughout the whole four hours and many businesses had generators.

He said Enemalta should have been held responsible if the blackout was the result of carelessness but one had to distinguish between incidents triggered by lack of attention and those that were accidental.

Enemalta said on Tuesday the incident that led to the blackout was out of its control and described it as a "force majeure event" caused by a technical fault on one of the generating units.

"Incidents can happen because of carelessness but there are times when they are not," Dr Gonzi said.

When it was pointed out that there was only one electricity provider in Malta and consumers did not have a choice, Dr Gonzi said: "But this is no fault of ours because the sector is liberalised."

He did admit, however, that Malta's size made it difficult to have competition when it came to energy. "This is our disadvantage. I think when we have the interconnector, the country will be able to choose energy coming from different sources and, therefore, at different prices," he said.

He insisted it was imperative to move fast with the necessary investments when it came to energy for otherwise "the country would not only talk about damages from power cuts of a few hours but the loss of competiveness for foreign investment".

Monday's blackout hit the entire Maltese islands after an unexpected technical fault shut down Boiler No. 7 at the Marsa power station.

As a consequence, the power-generation load was shifted to the Delimara power station. However, an automatic safety mechanism then shut down Delimara to protect the machinery from damage and power was disrupted to the whole of Malta and Gozo.