‘These Things Happen,’ Says Energy Minister As He Blames Interconnector For Powercut
Energy Minister Joe Mizzi has told Lovin Malta that the nationwide powercut was likely caused by a fault in the interconnector due to bad weather in Sicily.
Even though there is meant to be a backup of the system in Malta, there was also a problem in one of the local plants. Some damage could have been caused in the synchronization phase due to high voltage, he explained.
Mizzi said power would start to be restored in strategic areas witin the next 10 minutes.
“These things happen,” Mizzi said.
“Thank God we have security of supply. If we only had the interconnector we could have been down for days, weeks or months, not hours.”
He said one couldn’t expect a “miracle” when switching from the interconnector to the local supply.
Mizzi said he was still awaiting a technical report from Enemalta as workers were currently fully focused on restoring electricity.
Asked whether he was concerned that this was the second nationwide powercut in a matter of weeks, he said: “I am not satisfied with the situation but these things happen.”
Mizzi confirmed that this powercut was not a result of high demand.
Asked about the allegation made by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi that the power cut was ordered by Castille, Mizzi dismissed this “instigation”.
“If someone is dreaming up these things I don’t know what they’re talking about. My interest is to make sure there is no abuse. If there is damage, we tackle it. And we need to restore power as soon as possible.”
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