A new all-time national electricity peak load of 438 megawatts was registered by Enemalta yesterday afternoon, the company said.

It said in a statement that peak electricity grid load in July last year stood at 381 megawatts. The previous highest peak ever registered in the Maltese islands was on July 23, 2007, when 434 megawatts were fed to the grid to meet customers’ demand.

Enemalta is expecting electricity demand to continue to increase in the coming weeks as the summer heat persists. The company said that in spite of the increase in demand, it still maintained an adequate level of spare capacity to ensure security of supply.

The current load levels were also the highest registered since the Marsa plant was shut down and put on cold standby earlier this year.

Enemalta said it was taking several measures to ensure that its electricity generation and distribution infrastructures were well prepared for this sudden rise in demand.

Additional employees were being deployed to provide immediate response to customers affected by network faults or other supply disruptions.

Workers were monitoring the impact of the rising temperatures on the generation and distribution equipment at the Delimara Power Station and other locations. Where necessary, they were making adjustments to optimise their operation. At night, as the demand dropped, technicians and engineers were carrying out additional maintenance works to prepare the generation plants for the next day’s peaks.

Enemalta chairman Fredrick Azzopardi said the company was aware that some parts of the distribution network required additional investment to provide an improved level of supply reliability and flexibility.

“Last year, we launched a long-term distribution network reinforcement plan, including the commissioning of four new distribution centres, the upgrading and enlargement of a number of other distribution centres as well as an increase in connection configurations between different nodes of the electricity grid,” he said.

Two of the new distribution centres, already at an advanced stage, were  located at St Andrew’s and Manoel Island, to consolidate the company’s services in nearby areas, including Sliema, St. Julian’s, Ta’ Xbiex, San Gwann and Msida.

He thanked the company’s employees who he said working together to provide the required services and to assist customers when supply was disrupted. 

The company said it was working on a major transformation of its electricity distribution operations, to increase the number of technical teams capable of providing a quicker response to customers’ requests for assistance.

Several employees were completing an intensive training programme, and were set to join the existing technical teams within a few weeks.

For assistance, customers should contact the company’s customer care team on 8007 2224 or customercare.em@enemalta.com.mt.

POWER CUT IN SLIEMA

Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

Meanwhile, a power outage has been reported in a small part of Sliema. A spokesman for the company said this was due to a fault in the distribution network.