Last week’s widespread power cuts were initiated when lightning struck parts of the Sicilian network infrastructure of the interconnector, according to an initial analysis by Enemalta and Terna Rete Italia.

Engineers from both companies concluded that the interruption, initiated at 4.38pm during a severe storm in Sicily, led to the disconnection of the protection systems at the Malta-Italy interconnector’s Maghtab terminal station.

As a result, the electricity supply was disconnected to prevent damage to the Maltese network. This triggered the automatic load shedding system on the Maltese grid, disrupting supply to several localities, to avoid a total shutdown in Malta.

Soon after the incident, Enemalta’s network control room contacted Terna’s control centre to confirm that the Sicilian network was stable, so that the two grids could again be synchronised.

In the meantime, Enemalta also operated its backup generation capacity at the Delimara power station to reduce restoration time. Power started flowing over the interconnector at 6.20pm and supply to all localities was restored by 6.42pm.

Enemalta and Terna thanked their engineers and technicians for their commitment and diligence in response to this incident and in the overall operation of the interconnector.