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

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

with the Italian Transmission Network managed by Terna, which is part of the European grid. It was constructed in 2014-2015, and supplies roughly of Malta's electrical power.

Technical characteristics

The long subsea cable starts at

Magħtab Magħtab is a Malta, Maltese village. It lies in the valley of the same name in the Local councils of Malta, local council of Naxxar. It is the site of the largest landfill in the island, commonly known as 'Mount Magħtab'. That landfill was clos ...

, Qalet Marku in Malta and it runs to Marina di Ragusa in

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

, Italy. From there it is connected to the

Ragusa Ragusa may refer to: Places Croatia * Ragusa, Dalmatia, the historical name of the city of Dubrovnik * the Republic of Ragusa (or Republic of Dubrovnik), the maritime city-state of Ragusa * Ragusa Vecchia, historical Italian name of Cavtat, a t ...

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 fibre industry headquartered in Paris, France. The group is active in four main business areas: buildings and territories (construction, local infrastructure, smart cities / grids, e-mobi ...

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

alternating current Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that 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 w ...

. The interconnector is operated by

Enemalta Enemalta plc is the only Maltese 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. It employs approximate ...

, 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 primary Executive (government), executive arm of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with a number of European Commissioner, members of the Commission (directorial system, informall ...

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

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