Teamwork was a determining factor in restoring the electricity supply in unusual weather conditions

15.03.2019

Five Enemalta’s employees, who were directly involved in restoring the electricity supply during the last weekend of February in which unusual weather conditions caused several outages around the country, provide a detailed account of the hard work conducted in a spam of 48 hours.

Between the 24th and the 25th of February, Enemalta’s centre of assistance replied to over 1,500 requests for assistance which identified over 1,000 fault cases. Half of these related to faults in the electricity supply while the rest were cases concerning other difficulties caused by the brutal weather that gripped Malta. 

While the failures of high voltage were few and all were repaired by in a short period, a substantial number of faults in low voltage affecting customers scattered around Malta and Gozo took longer to be solved. 

Due to the weather conditions experienced, there was a substantial increase in the request for electricity supply, such as on Sunday (24th February) the request averaged 324MW per hour or 20% more than the average usually reached on a Sunday. This increase is attributed to the fact that the Maltese families adhered to the appeals of the authorities and have remained at home during the day and this fact contributed to an increase in the usage of electronic heating systems among others. 

Enemalta’s emergency teams worked endlessly until the situation was back to normal, and Ing. George Portelli, Ing. John Zammit, Jesmond Pace, Raymond Lewis and Albert Demarco provide a detailed account of such an experience while expressing their gratitude for the excellent team spirit which resulted as a determining factor in restoring the electricity supply to all those affected by any fault.