Energy crisis: Enemalta paying more than €10,000 an hour for generators

Enemalta is forking out more than  €10,000 an hour to lease large generators to shore up its ongoing energy crisis, a result of mismanagement and lack of investment, The Shift can reveal.

Chairman Ryan Fava admitted during the weekend that Enemalta is using industrial generators to try to mitigate hours of blackouts across the country. However, engineers at the state company told The Shift that the situation is much worse than what the chairman described.

They said that for the second year in a row, Enemalta is relying on some 50 generators, mostly leased from Nexos Lighting to save the situation.

“All of Nexos’s generators, which are usually used for filming locations, are currently at Enemalta’s disposal,” the engineers said.

The capacity of the hired generators varies from some 300 KVa to as much as 4 Megawatts.

Other industrial generators were hired from Bonnici Brothers, a company that has been winning massive tenders and direct orders since Abela became Prime Minister in 2020.

Enemalta engineers told The Shift that these generators are costing the company at least €10,000 an hour when used at one go.

“It depends on the size of the generator. However, on average, the company is forking out some €600 an hour for each generator. We calculate some €10,000 an hour in very conservative terms,” they added.

This is not the first time that Enemalta has had to rely on Nexos and other private suppliers to mitigate the massive faults in its distribution system caused by a lack of investment in the past years and the uncontrolled rise in the population.

Last year, on the direct orders of Energy Minister Miriam Dalli, Enemalta had to lease Nexos’s generators by direct order to ensure that a few streets in the minister’s constituency – Zurrieq – could be lit up for the village feast.

Dalli was under pressure by her constituents celebrating the Tal-Karmnu feast in pitch darkness and had to find a quick solution to avoid further embarrassment. At the time, since the filming of the Gladiator sequel was on hold due to a Hollywood strike, the generators of Nexos were quickly transferred to Zurrieq for Dalli to save face.

Chairman Ryan Fava and Minister Dalli did not answer questions when asked to give details on the number of generators Enemalta was renting and at what cost.