Malta–Sicily Interconnector

Until March 2015, every kilowatt-hour used in Malta was generated on the islands. The Malta–Sicily Interconnector changed that. A 200 MW alternating-current cable, it came ashore at Qalet Marku in Magħtab, in the locality of Naxxar, and ran 95 km under the sea to Marina di Ragusa on the south coast of Sicily. From there a 25 km underground section takes it to the Ragusa substation.

The motive was isolation. Malta had no connection to any other grid, and the government also wanted to close the ageing Marsa power station. According to the Wikipedia article on the interconnector, the 2015 projection was that Malta’s interconnection level would go from zero to about 35%. The cable was laid in 2014 and 2015 by the Nexans ship Nexans Skagerrak, and the project cost €182 million.

Direct current was not needed. At 95 km of sea, an AC cable is still workable, and it avoids the cost of converter stations at each end. The islands and Sicily sit in the same synchronous area, so the link simply extends the European AC grid to Malta. The longer, deeper Mediterranean cables, such as SAPEI, use DC.

In practice the cable supplied 23.1% of the power generated for Malta in 2019. It also showed the risk of relying on one cable. On 23 December 2019 a ship’s anchor damaged it and caused power cuts across the islands. Nexans spliced in a length of spare cable and the link was re-energised on 12 March 2020, cable industry press reported, less than three months after the damage.

That incident made the case for a second cable. The Malta–Sicily Second Interconnector will run in parallel between the same two substations, so that Malta can keep its supply when one cable or one large power plant is lost. The first cable was originally owned by Enemalta and is now operated by Interconnect Malta.