U-turn on wind power came after report to Commission
Government was excluding near-shore farms as recently as May before Gonzi removed the veto on land-based farms
James Debono
Malta was still excluding land wind farms as recently as May, this newspaper can reveal, before abandoning a fantasy project to construct wind farms in 20-metre depths out at sea just last month.
A report the government presented to the European Commission in May shows it was excluding wind farms built on land or near-shore sites such as Sikka l-Bajda – the site where Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi is now seeking to invest €130 million in for a wind farm.
Previously the government had restricted its options to the development of inexistent wind farms in deep waters. It only changed its policy a few months after presenting its report to the Commission in May.
Things changed radically in July when Resources and Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino got experts to assess the feasibility of locating a farm on the Sikka l-Bajda reef, located just 2 km away from Rdum il-Madonna in Mellieha.
In October, Gonzi announced plans for the Sikka l-Bajda wind farm, which would supply 4% of national energy needs. Pullicino also said land-based wind farms were not being excluded.
And yet, only in May the government was telling the Commission that land farms would result in “unacceptable landscape impacts” in a small country with a high population density.
The government also threw cold water on near-shore farms, saying it would harm tourism and other marine activities.
Instead the government recommended deep-water farms, claiming Malta would hitch up with the European electricity grid, rendering the system stable and robust enough to make the project economically feasible.
But their report also acknowledged that “further work is necessary to ensure the commercial viability of deep-water offshore technology” and stated that “it would be unlikely that a deep-water offshore wind farm can be constructed before 2010.”
A Commission spokesperson has refused to comment on the report, and that the EU will only comment on the progress made on EU renewable energy targets, a report of which is to be published in early 2009. “This Communication will be based on the reports that Member States have submitted to the Commission,” the spokesperson told MaltaToday.
The spokesperson refused to reveal whether the Commission had exercised pressure on the government to drop its veto on land and near-shore farms.
Malta is committed to produce 10% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. It has already committed itself to produce 5% from renewable energy by 2010 in the accession treaty.
But this target was subsequently revised to between 0.3% to 1.3% in a report submitted to the European Commission in 2005.
In its latest report, it committed itself to produce 0.26% of its 2010 energy demand from biomass waste treated at the Sant Antnin recycling plant. After 2010, Malta will start producing a further 0.2% of its electricity consumption from landfill gas. A further 0.26% would be produced from sewage sludge and waste from animal husbandry activities.
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