Evarist Bartolo| Sunday, 30 August 2009

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Dark times ahead thanks to Austin Gatt

The extension of the Delimara power station awarded to BWSC will not be in operation before August 2011, more than a year after it is needed. By 2010 and 2011, expect power cuts to increase as the PN government’s incompetence, indecision, lack of leadership and vision have made the country run out of electricity.
This is not cheap scaremongering. A dossier prepared by Enemalta dated 6 March 2008 says: “The 100MW Generation plant must be in service in 2010. Delays in this time will result in Enemalta Corporation’s inability to meet demand during the peak season.”
The PN Government landed us in a mess in the energy sector. Years went by without the necessary investment in the generation and distribution infrastructure. The Enemalta dossier admits: “New plant investment, both in generation and distribution, is already too late.”
We’re already paying a high price for incompetence, and we’ll undergo more pain in the future. Government was aware that our electricity infrastructure was ageing fast and falling behind rising demands, and yet failed to take the necessary action. These wasted years of policy paralysis and drift cannot be blamed on Enemalta, as its Minister, Dr Austin Gatt, is a hands-on minister: whatever happens or does not happen at Enemalta is up to him. The Enemalta dossier considers “a high degree of political interference” to be its biggest threat: “There is a high degree of political interference in the internal day-to-day running of the Corporation.”
This high degree of political interference undermines the Corporation’s operational ability and efficiency: “The Corporation lacks a clear decision taking process, especially in view of decisions taken by parties outside the Enemalta structure… A lack of continuity at Board, Chairman and CEO level has resulted in an unclear strategic direction.”
While emasculating Enemalta, government failed to act and has lost many opportunities to modernise our energy infrastructure, on which our quality of life and economic prosperity depend. After deciding in favour of installing new power stations using the Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) because they were cheaper and better than Combined Cycle Diesel Units (CCDU) for environmental reasons, government knew that it had to invest in the supply of natural gas infrastructure to make this happen. But it failed to do so.
An ENI feasibility study carried out for the government concluded that a gas pipeline between Sicily and Malta was technically feasible. Government’s inaction has now put this feasibility in doubt as government’s own Generation Plan 2006-2015 points out: “The projected cost of the pipeline at 2003 costs was approximately Lm40 million, but given the large increases in the costs of raw materials, particularly steel, the cost is today (2006) more likely to rise to Lm65 million.”
The present trend is for the cost of steel to climb even further.
Government still has to invest in a gas pipeline or terminal to ensure a supply of natural gas for the new plants to be installed at Delimara. Even if the contract for the BWSC medium speed diesel engine plant goes ahead, a technology that government abandoned in 2006 in favour of Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT), a new generating plant will be needed soon at Delimara. In fact in its Proposal for a New Energy Policy, the Malta Resources Authority recommends that in five years’ time, in 2014, a new plant needs to be commissioned: “a Gas based CCGT (2+1); 126 MW capacity.”
As this investment in natural gas provision did not take place when prices were cheaper, we are going to have to bear heavier costs in the years ahead. We’re also going to have to spend more money on trying to find the necessary space for the new generating plants we need in the near future. The dossier says: “Since the present site at Delimara can only accommodate three more 130MW CCGT type plants and even less if diesel engine based plants are selected, this would give Delimara a potential maximum of circa 694MW.”
The new plant is going to be diesel-engine based and a realistic appraisal of its costs should also include the expense we’ll incur in the future to find the necessary space it takes up; and that would have served for the other new plants that we will need in the near future.
Soon after 2015 we will have to invest in yet more generating plants as the Corporation expects that by then, demand for electricity in Malta will reach 600MW and Delimara alone will not have enough spare capacity to cope with this demand. The cable link between Malta and Sicily will surely help but even that option, though necessary, presents tough dilemmas that we have to navigate skillfully if we are not to allow this solution become a problem in itself.
In the meantime the PN government’s lack of vision and poor leadership continue. Government continues to show no real interest in the benefits that Malta can have if it grabs the opportunities presented by the various initiatives that are being planned to supply EU countries with energy from Africa. These plans are already at an advanced stage, also identifying from which countries pipelines and transmission cables will pass and from where they will cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe. Government’s insular mentality is allowing these opportunities to pass us by.

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