The Malta–Sicily interconnector is the submarine power cable which connects the power grid of

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

with the Italian Transmission Network managed by Terna, which is part of the

European grid The European grid is a proposed, multipurpose Pan-European mapping standard. It is based on the ETRS89 coordinate reference system and the Lambert Azimuthal Equal-Area projection, with the centre of the projection at the point 52° N, 10° E a ...

Technical characteristics

The long subsea cable starts at

Magħtab Magħtab is a village in Naxxar, Malta. Magħtab is mostly known for Malta's largest landfill. Since Malta joined the E.U in 2004, the landfill has been closed. Rehabilitation of the closed landfill is in progress. The '' Il-Widna'' acoustic m ...

, Qalet Marku in Malta and it runs to

Marina di Ragusa Marina di Ragusa, also known as ''Mazzarelli'', is a southern Italian village and hamlet (''frazione'') of Ragusa, a municipality seat of the homonym province, Sicily. In 2011 it had a population of 3,468, which during the summer rises to more t ...

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, Italy. From there it is connected to the

Ragusa Ragusa is the historical name of Dubrovnik. It may also refer to: Places Croatia * the Republic of Ragusa (or Republic of Dubrovnik), the maritime city-state of Ragusa * Cavtat (historically ' in Italian), a town in Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Cro ...

substation, which is of the Italian TSO Terna, via a underground cable. The cable and 132/220 kV substation in Malta is provided by

Nexans Nexans S.A. is a global company in the cable and optical fiber industry headquartered in Paris, France. The group is active in four main business areas: buildings and territories (construction, local infrastructure, smart cities / grids, e-mobil ...

. The cable has capacity of 200 MW and it uses 220 kV high voltage

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current which periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time in contrast to direct current (DC) which flows only in one direction. Alternating current is the form in whic ...

. The interconnector is operated by

Enemalta Enemalta plc is the only Malta, Maltese Energy industry, energy company. It provides energy services in the Maltese Islands and is entrusted with the distribution of electricity, and the development of the national electricity distribution network. ...

, the Maltese power company. In the 2014 the cable was laid in the sea by the ship C/S ''Nexans Skagerrak'' of the Company

. The interconnector became operational in March 2015. The project cost €182 million.

Economic impact

The cable allows Malta to exchange electricity with the Italian power market, i.e. the island can both import and export electricity from Italy through the interconnector. The creation of this subsea cable ended Malta's previous electricity's isolation and diversified its mix of energy sources. In February 2015,

European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body o ...

underlined that Malta's interconnection level would go from 0% to approximately 35% with the new interconnector.COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL - Achieving the 10% electricity interconnection target - Making Europe's electricity grid fit for 2020
Brussels, 25.2.2015 COM(2015) 82 final

Problems

In December 2019 power outages in Malta were being caused by a failure of the interconnector cable having been damaged by a ship's anchor. In 2019 the interconnector supplied 23.1% of generated power.

Sites

References

External links