In a very pompous and well polished and markete4d press conference, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli announced her energy-plan for the next five years, but no actual plan was published or distributed to the press. A document was presented describing “Five pillars” which include already-existing concepts applied in government policy such as energy and fuel subsidies.
We did not receive the document yet via an official DOI release, but it has been published first by press outlets subsidised by the Ministry of Energy such as MaltaToday. Since then the document listing the “five pillars” has been sent via a DOI press release and can be found here.
Minister Miriam Dalli announced the government plans a carbon-neutral economy, a policy concept she has long promoted. Recently, Finance Minister Clyde Caruana said that subsidies would be phased out as electricity bills are lowered with renewable energy sources. She made no reference to this policy-concept.
The Energy Minister also applauded the construction of a new wind turbine off the Maltese coast. She also announced the construction of a new interconnector with Sicily making it the third interconnector to Malta.
The Minister also said that Enemalta saved up to €116 million with its hedging agreements, but gave no details. Enemalta depends on government subsidies to survive and the Ministry of Energy has issued up to €1.5 billion in energy and fuel subsidies so far. The Minister has consistently refused to publish any information about the government’s energy and electricity purchases.
She added that the government is spending up to €300 million in upgrading the energy grid and this is “the biggest ongoing capital investment project by the government”.
The press conference can be found here.
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