After five years of delays, U-turns and leaps in the dark, government has finally lifted its veto on smaller land-based farms. JAMES DEBONO on why it took a full five years for Gonzi to realize Malta needs more than a quick-fix solution
Ninu Zammit’s reign of inertia
With the publication of a draft energy policy in 2006, and this week’s revelation that three sites have been earmarked for land-based wind farms, it seems the government is now taking its renewable energy commitments seriously.
But this was not the case in previous years. Renewable energy was definitely not a priority under Ninu Zammit’s term as Minister for Resources and Infrastructure. Although money was still spent on a report conducted by British energy experts Mott Macdonald, its conclusions were largely ignored over the next three years.
The UK firm submitted the report for the first phase of a study to develop a strategy for renewable electricity exploitation in Malta in April 2005, but the report was only tabled in parliament two years later. The first commitment to be broken came in September 2005 when a spokesperson for Ninu Zammit told MaltaToday that consultation with the public and stakeholders on Malta’s policy on renewable energy sources was to start in October 2005.
Yet instead of consultation with Maltese stakeholders, in October the Maltese government presented its long overdue report on the implementation the EU directive 2001/77/EC to promote an increase of the contribution of renewable energy sources to electricity production in the internal market for electricity and to create a basis for a future Community framework.
The report whose contents were revealed in MaltaToday in December 2005, showed that Malta was to fall short of the 5% target for electricity produced from renewable energy sources by 2010, which was agreed upon with the EU in the accession process.
The report showed that Malta could barely manage to produce 1% of its energy needs from these sources if a large scale onshore wind farm, as well as a waste combustion plant, were developed by 2010.
Malta’s report to the Commission pointed at wind, solar photovoltaic, biomass wastes, landfill gasses and sewage treatment plant as suitable alternative energy sources. “Without the construction of at least one large scale onshore wind farm, the target for generation of energy from wind and solar energy by 2010 would be very low and estimated at 0.07-0.09 % of gross electricity consumption,” the report warned.
The report envisioned that two offshore wind farms, a waste combustion facility and anaerobic plants for agricultural waste will be place after 2010. The government’s conservative targets contrasted with more ambitious targets set by the Institute for Energy Technology of the University of Malta, whose study claims the cumulative contribution of solar, wind and biomass could reach 24% of the total electricity generated in 2003.
The Mott Macdonald report The report presented to the Commission was based on another report submitted by British consultants Mott MacDonald in 2005 which recommended the development of a land-based wind farm by 2010. The foreign consultants had recommended that Malta should start with a medium-sized land capacity and proceed to an offshore facility at a later stage.
The report had identified Sikka l-Bajda as “the best site” for the development of an offshore wind farm, even if this site was deemed to compare poorly with similar wind farms in the North Sea. Mott Macdonald calculated a 25% wind capacity rate for Sikka l-Bajda. According to this report, similar wind farms in the North Sea have a capacity factor of 40%.
But the same report deemed site as being too close to the shoreline to benefit from long-term annual wind speed, and is too sheltered from prevailing northwest winds. Mott Macdonald questioned the commercial viability of offshore wind farms in general, due to “the potentially higher costs of equipment, installation and operation and maintenance raises issues of commercial viability.”
It also deemed the development of wind farms in deeper waters “unlikely” due to the unavailability of the appropriate technology. Hidden from public view for two years, the Mott Macdonald report was only tabled in parliament in May 2007 when former Resources Minister Ninu Zammit revealed that the government had discarded the recommendation for a land-based wind farm due to its environmental impact and because it would have only generated 1% of Malta’s energy needs.
The cost of wind
Malta failed to seize the initiative on promoting renewable energy despite the dramatic rise in the price of fossil fuels between 2004 and 2009 before these started to fall again in the past few months.
On 15 October 2005 Investments Minister Austin Gatt dismissed the claim that alternative energy would result in cheaper energy as an “illusion”. According to Gatt, at the rate of technological development and current oil prices, it still costs more to produce one unit of electricity using any alternative rather than using traditional fossil fuels.
In contrast, resources authority CEO Antoine Riolo claimed at a seminar on renewable energy held in September 2005 that the costs of potential offshore wind generation at is-Sikka l-Bajda could be generated at 3c3 per kWh. With the cost of conventional energy reaching 4c4 per kWh due to the increase in fuel prices, for the first time wind energy appeared cheaper than oil.
Another study by the Institute for Energy Technology of the University of Malta further shows that at “present prices, a medium wind site like Luqa can produce electricity at 3c5 per kWh, while a better site like Bahrija would generate at 2c5 per kWh”: nearly half the cost of a conventional fuel plant today.
During a conference in Rome organised by the Renewable Power Association on 16 November 2005, Isabel Boira-Segarra, one of the authors of the Mott Macdonald report, also presented figures showing that a large onshore wind energy plant in Malta is more cost-effective than a conventional fossil fuel plant. Boira-Segarra’s concluding remark on renewable energy in Malta that “political will is a necessity”, said it all.
But the government remained sceptical. The Prime Minister went as far as to question the feasibility of any large-scale wind farms in his 2005 budget speech. “Although the government does not completely exclude the development of offshore wind farms, the volume of energy these can produce is minimal. Yet since technology in this sector is evolving fast, what is impossible today can become possible tomorrow,” Gonzi said.
But by August 2006, the government’s scepticism on wind energy made way for a misplaced optimism on the prospects of a yet undeveloped technology.
Non-existent technology In August 2006 the Malta Resources Authority issued calls for interest in offshore wind projects, despite knowing that the technology does not exist to operate such wind farms at the depths it proposed. The MRA excluded all sites less than 20 metres deep after the Malta Tourism Authority protested that all near-shore sites are no-go areas due to a possible negative impact on tourism.
Although the offshore option was deemed more costly than land-based or near-shore options, the government justified the blanket exclusion on land-based wind farms on the country’s small size, high population density and the visual impact.
Throughout the world, offshore wind farms are constructed at depths of less than 20 meters. MRA chief executive Antoine Riolo acknowledged that no such wind farms exist, but mentioned that ongoing research is being carried out in Calabria, Italy. The government claimed that the project would produce 9.5% of Malta’s energy.
For physicist and energy expert Edward Mallia, this was “a way of saying that we are doing something even if in reality we are opting for a solution which cannot be considered realistic in the immediate future.”
While not excluding the possibility that a technology enabling the development of these wind farms at such depths could be developed by applying technologies used in oil rigs, he warned that no such developments could be expected in the very near future.
Prof Mallia questioned the wisdom of this decision, arguing that the case for near-shore and land-based wind farms has been dismissed in a shoddy manner. “Once again the government is opting for a mega-project while excluding the potential of a mosaic of smaller scale solutions,” he said.
A draft energy policy The government’s draft policy on renewable energy published in August 2006 not only excluded land-based wind farms because of “enormous visual and other impacts”, but pointed it out that the disadvantages of developing a near-shore wind farm at Sikka l-Bajda could outweigh its advantages. The policy claimed that Sikka l-Bajda would only produce 2.1% of Malta’s energy needs and the option was shelved “because of the impact of such a project on current economic activity.”
Before the election, the Nationalist Party was confident enough to promise the generation of 10% of Malta’s energy from renewable energy by 2020. Government was excluding near-shore and land based wind farms as recently as May 2008, when it presented its second report on renewable energy to the European Commission which stated 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 the government’s 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 refused to reveal whether the Commission had exercised pressure on the government to drop its veto on land and near-shore farms but in October the government dropped its veto on land based and near shore wind farms.
The first U-turn In October 2008 Prime Minister Gonzi announced that the government had opted for a near-shore wind farm at the Sikka l-Bajda reef, less than 2km from Malta’s largest bird conservation programme. Speaking at the PN general council last week, Resources Minister George Pullicino also dropped government’s veto on building wind turbines on land, a proposal which had been discarded two years before.
The Prime Minister has now announced that a wind farm at Sikka l-Bajda can produce 4% of Malta’s energy needs: double the figure mentioned in the 2006 energy policy. But Resources Minister George Pullicino acknowledged that Malta will still have to wait another four to five years to see Malta’s first wind farm. Two-year waiting lists already exist for orders of the rotors needed at Sikka l-Bajda.
Minority report ignored On October 28, MaltaToday revealed that the government had ignored Edward Mallia’s advice to consider Bahrija and the north shore of Gozo as alternatives to the Sikka l-Bajda reef. Mallia had advised the government last July to consider two alternative sites before rushing to choose the Sikka l-Bajda reef as the site of Malta’s first wind farm.
Prof. Mallia formed part of an advisory committee appointed by Minister George Pullicino and chaired by environmentalist Alan Deidun, to examine the viability of the Sikka l-Bajda site. The sites proposed by Mallia were the Wied Rini mast farm in Bahrija, which already hosts 20 disused telecommunication masts, and an offshore site on the north shore of Gozo. Although the government has now lifted its veto on wind farms on land and near the shore, Mallia feared “a repeat performance” of the deep shore wind farm debacle with the government preferring an offshore site located just 2km away from a bird breeding colony to other, less problematic onshore or near-shore sites.
BirdLife Malta had already expressed concern on the impact of a wind farm at Sikka l-Bajda on the Yelkouan shearwater breeding colony at L-Ahrax Tal-Mellieha, which hosts some 10% of the seabird’s world population. According to BirdLife, a two-year study will be required to assess whether the proposed wind farm would have a negative impact on the shearwater’s breeding patterns.
“While the deep-water wind farm has receded to a more distant future, pressures to do something have multiplied from various directions,” Mallia wrote in his report. “How have we responded? We put in a repeat performance, in Doh-minor this time. Without much attempt to look at the elements of the situation in a holistic manner… our lodestar is now a wind farm on Sikka l-Bajda.”
Although Mallia participated in the drafting of the report on the viability of Sikka l-Bajda, the physicist wanted the advisory committee to consider alternative sites. “The problems associated with using Sikka l-Bajda for an offshore wind farm, while by no means insurmountable, suggested that the committee should, by way of providing valuable advice, look for possible specific alternatives which might have fewer problems,” Mallia wrote.
But since there was no consensus among the committee members on this point, Mallia proceeded to write his own appendix to the report commissioned by the government.
Mallia contends that the analysis of Sikka l-Bajda’s potential confirmed the conclusion of an earlier report by the British consultants Mott Macdonald, that a land-based wind farm was preferable to one at sea. He warned that the government risks wasting valuable time on assessing the impacts of the Sikka l-Bajda site. This would require extensive wind speed measurements; base line studies on the impact on the marine environment; and the collection of data on the projects’ impact on the shearwater bird breeding colony in Rdum Tal-Madonna.
He also warned that another probable disadvantage will be caused by the long waiting lists for ordering the gigantic wind turbines required for this wind farm. International order books for 1MW to 3MW turbines are full at the moment. One of the sites proposed by Mallia was the Wied Rini mast farm, on which 20 trellis masts, set on four square-metre concrete bases, are already in place. Some of these masts are 50 metres high. Only one is currently in use.
The advantage of Bahrija over other land sites was that the visual impact of setting up the turbines would not be any worse than that that of the masts which are already dominate the area. The area is also currently used for the dumping of construction waste.
The other offshore location preferred by Mallia was a strip on the north shore of Gozo stretching eastward from Ras il-Qbajjar towards Ras il-Qala, stopping at Mistra Rocks just south of Wied San Blas. Wind conditions are deemed by Mallia to be distinctly better than Sikka il-Bajda, where wind measurements still have to be taken and measurements have already been taken during the past years at the nearby Jordan white house.
The second U-turn
It was only last month that the government finally accepted one of Mallia’s proposals by proposing a wind farm in Wied Rini and another at the Ħal Far industrial estate to accompany the one at Is-Sikka l-Bajda.
This latest U-turn came in the wake of Alternattiva Demokratika’s call on the government to publish all its reports on the feasibility of the Sikka l-Bajda option.
Together the three sites would generate energy equivalent to that consumed by almost 48,000 households. Environmentalists have generally welcomed plans for three wind farms but they warned that Malta was still running late and the turbines were a long way from being built.
Today Public Policy Institute chairman Martin Scicluna wondered whether the €300 million to be invested privately in wind energy would translate into value for money, saying more emphasis needed to be placed on solar-energy, increasing energy efficiency and reducing consumption. On the other hand Flimkien Għal Ambjent Aħjar wind energy spokesman George Debono, who was on a panel of environmentalists who were consulted on the decision, said this was a very positive step, particularly because land-based wind farms were now being seriously considered. These were cheaper than offshore ones and would therefore generate cheaper electricity.
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