NEWS | Wednesday, 15 October 2008

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Energy capping favoured single-meter establishments

James Debono
The big industrial consumers of energy who enjoyed a capping of their utility bills – paid for by the taxpayer – could have got the edge over other industrial establishments if they were furnished with just one, general electricity meter.
When paying bills, hotels or shopping complexes endowed with a single meter had an advantage over others which had a separate meter for every separate establishment under their roof.
Through the capping mechanism, the energy bill of hotel or industrial firms could never exceed €50,000 a year.
Effectively this gave an advantage to outlets situated in bigger establishments endowed with a single meter, as these were more likely to exceed the capped amount than establishments with a separate meter for every outlet under their roof.
Since most of these metering arrangements were already in place before the capping was introduced in 2005, a lot depended on luck.
A spokesperson for Enemalta confirmed that for billing purposes, hotels are presently regarded as one premises and any shops, restaurants, offices within the precinct of the hotel contribute to the hotel bill.
Outlets within hotels are generally sub-metered by the hotel and do not have a separate meter provided by Enemalta Corporation.
Metering and billing arrangements for shopping complexes vary from case to case. While some shopping complexes are supplied with one meter, there are instances where shops are individually metered by Enemalta.
As regards shopping complexes within hotels, these are separately metered when the shopping complex is “physically and electrically separate” from the hotel.
Asked about the metering of mega-projects like Tigné and Portomaso, the Enemalta spokesperson replied that since the different components such as hotels, office blocks and residential units “are generally physically and electrically separate” they are “metered and billed separately.”
While Enemalta’s rule is to provide each separate premises with one meter, the corporation admits that when it comes to office blocks and shopping complexes there is room for interpretation.
“In practice this has resulted in a mix of electrical installations and metering arrangements,” the spokesperson said.
The government now intends to scrap the capping mechanism which is being challenged in the office of fair trade for being discriminatory against business which do not exceed the €50,000 threshold.

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