On the eve of the new millennium, the PN government promised to convert to clean natural gas the existing Marsa and Delimara Power Stations operating on dirty and polluting heavy fuel oil, as this would be cheaper for families and businesses, and so much better for public health and the natural environment. Government also promised that new plants would also be powered by natural gas.
A policy approved by the Cabinet in 2006 states that no more diesel engine plants were to be installed in Malta as this would be very short-sighted: “Although in this short term a 100MW diesel engine plant would meet National Emission Ceiling limits, the limits anticipated… for 2020 are so much lower that not even one 100MW plant would be acceptable using current technology limits. Since 2020 is well within the economic lifetime of such a plant (20 years), it is not feasible to invest in such plant at this stage, knowing that in 2020 (after only 10 years of operation) it may not be able to operate.”
But last year, government accepted the bid submitted by the Danish company BWSC offering a diesel engine plant operating on heavy fuel oil. To defend its choice, government is now saying that the BWSC extension at Delimara is going to be so much better than the Marsa power station plant. It is like saying that a newborn is more vital than a very old person a few moments before death. The Marsa steam turbines are nearly 50 years old and the age of the boilers ranges from 24 to 42 years! The new baby at Delimara is going to be born already old. The BWSC extension is also going to work on heavy fuel oil, definitely not the millennium gift we have been promised. After a few years of operation, the BWSC plant will have to be converted to use natural gas.
Last September, in a political activity organized by the PN on the Granaries at Floriana, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said that when government wants to all it has to do say “Abracadabra” and the new BWSC plant will star using natural gas. When asked how much this conversion would cost, he replied: “It will cost nothing. It is not true that it would cost anything. Not true!” It is incredible that the Prime Minister has been defending BWSC’s offer tooth and nail and does not even bother to get his facts right. The conversion of the BWSC’s plant from heavy fuel oil to the use of natural gas is going to cost us at least another €27 million.
In its March 2009 report, the Australian National Toxics Network Inc says: “The increasing global recognition that heavy oil power plants are dirty and expensive to run with serious greenhouse emissions, has led to many developing countries closing these types of power plants converting them to cleaner fossil fuels such as natural gas.” Many expensive and hazardous plants working on heavy fuel oil have been converted to work on natural gas in Brazil, Pakistan, Portugal, Turkey, Germany, India, Indonesia and China in recent years. The PN government has been promising to do the same for at least 10 years.
On 12 September 1999, then Energy Minister Josef Bonnici said on the PN’s radio station 101 that government was studying the feasibility of a pipeline between Sicily and Malta so that the Marsa and Delimara power stations will start operating on natural gas instead of heavy fuel oil. He said the reduction of pollution from the Marsa would be the best gift of the millennium. Three days later, the PN’s newspaper In-Nazzjon repeated the same promise of “the best millennium gift for Malta”: Marsa working on natural gas.
On 12 February 2003, Bonnici emphasised the “financial and environmental benefits” of the new pipeline that would enable “Malta’s two power stations to operate on gas rather than oil.” The Minister also spoke of the availability of European Union funds for the implementation of the project.
When Minister Austin Gatt was made responsible for Malta’s energy policy he also declared that gone were the days of having power plants operating on heavy fuel oil in Malta; the future belonged to plants fired by natural gas. On 20 June 2006, in an Enemalta seminar addressed by Anthony Rizzo, Peter Grima, Alex Tranter and Gatt, it was made clear that a power station powered by medium speed diesel engines “does not meet present” environmental standards. One of the recommended solutions to meet the need for 300MW to be generated by 2010 was the building of a “Combined Cycle Gas Turbine 130MW plant.”
The Electricity Generation Plan 2006-2015 approved by Cabinet concluded that “the optimum generation plant, which can meet the requirements of the present and expected environmental legislation at the lowest generation cost and identifies the use of Combined Cycle Gas Turbines (CCGT) as being the only generating plant able to comply with the present expected emissions limits in 2020.”
The same plan refers to ENI’s 2003 study which said the gas pipeline was technically feasible and would have cost €100 million seven years ago. By now, when the price of steel is so much higher, the cost is more than double.
In 2007, Enemalta was still going ahead with its plans to replace heavy fuel oil and switch to natural gas. Three years ago, Enemalta issued a request for proposals for the supply of natural gas for the generation of electricity. Three outline proposals were received at the end of May 2007. Two were for the supply of liquid natural gas, the third for compact natural gas. All three require port terminal and storage facilities at Delimara.
Despite the commitment to switch to gas, no tangible steps have been taken to invest in the supply infrastructure for natural gas, either via pipeline or by shipping it to Malta. In its 6 March 2008 dossier Enemalta says that “The project is envisaged to be completed by 2015…” and on 22 September 2009, David Spiteri Gingell, chairman of the Climate Change Committee said: “Malta would not be ready, infrastructure-wise, to import natural gas for the power station at least before 2016. Therefore any conversion of the generating plant could not take place before that time.”
We are going to have to pay dearly for this lack of planning. In late 2007, government abandoned its promise to fire the new plant installed at Delimara with natural gas: without announcing publicly this dramatic U-turn, it changed the definition of ‘diesel engines’ in LN 329/2002 with a new legal notice to make it possible for the plant offered by BWSC to operate on heavy fuel oil. Before this change in the law BWSC would not have qualified for the contract it was awarded in April 2009. But BWSC was convinced the law was going to be changed as it submitted its bid and even held two rounds of negotiation meetings between 12 November 2007 and 11 December 2007.
Significantly, in a meeting held at Delimara on 4 September 2007 at 9am, Enemalta told the bidders about LN329/2002 (that excluded plants fired by diesel engines operating on heavy fuel oil): “That officially is the transposition of the EU LCPD directive 2001/80 into Maltese law. Unfortunately, and I say unfortunately they are not the same thing… So diesel engines will have to comply with the same limits as combustion plants as defined in the directive.”
This fundamental detail, unfortunate and inconvenient for those bidders who offered diesel generated units to power the new plants, was eliminated a few weeks after this meeting.
Fortunately for BWSC, LN329/2002 became LN2/2008 and diesel engines were allowed to operate locally, again on heavy fuel oil putting off for another time the promised millennium gift of power stations fired by natural gas.
Evarist Bartolo is the shadow minister for education
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