Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1347847
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 7 MARCH 2021 INTERVIEW The answer is (literally) blowing in the wind On Xtra recently, Energy Min- ister Miriam Dalli said that a 'floating wind farm situated 10 nautical miles off Gozo would supply electricity for Gozo and parts of Malta'. At a glance, this seems strikingly similar to a proposal made by Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi over 10 years ago… but which nev- er materialised. Are we once again looking at a pipe-dream? Or have things changed in the meantime: making a once unvi- able project, viable? There is a difference between what was being proposed in 2008/9, and what is being pro- posed today. Back then, the idea was for an offshore windfarm at Sikka L-Bajda, outside Mellieha. Those turbines would have been erected on a platform: so they would have been 'offshore'… but on platforms that are anchored to the seabed. The ones being proposed today are, by way of contrast, floating windfarms. Now: what's the dif- ference, you might ask? When the Sikka l-Bajda project was abandoned, there were several reasons. One was the environ- ment concern: including the threat they posed to seabirds such as the Yelkouan shearwa- ter. But the other was the cost. This has always been the fun- damental underlying concern. I don't know if you remember, but the first solar panel scheme – around 2005/6 – gave us 28c per kilowatt hour. Compared to the 7c we now pay to Electrogas, it gives you an idea of how ex- pensive renewable energy was, at the time. Basically, energy generation from those offshore windfarms would have cost quite a bit. I don't remember the precise figures, but it would have been expensive. Even so, however: at, for instance, 18c per kilowatt hour, it would still have been cheap compared to the renewa- ble alternatives (basically, solar) available back then. What happened, however, was that by around 2012/13, the cost of photovoltaic panels (PVs) fell drastically, by more than half. In fact, in the next scheme, govern- ment lowered the fees for PVS to only 18c. So if we had implemented the Sikka L-Bajda windfarm back then, it would have been expen- sive compared to the solar farms that we are now actually build- ing: which work out at between 10 and 14c per kilowatt hour. This is still higher than gen- eration by the existing pow- er-plant… but it's getting close. You mentioned environmental concerns: wouldn't those also apply to the current proposal? There will always be some form of environmental issue involved – this is why any project, includ- ing this one, would have to go through an EIA – but when it comes specifically to the birdlife issue: the problem with the original proposal was the posi- tioning of the windfarms them- selves… which would have been fixed at Sikka l-Bajda: straight in the shearwater's path. The advantage of floating windfarms, on the other hand, is that you can place them wher- ever you like. So if they're in the path of migratory birds, they can always be moved… Nonetheless, both Gonzi's deepwater windfarms and to- day's proposal seem to rely on a technology that hasn't yet been fully developed. Aren't people justified, then, in being scepti- cal about the Energy Minister's claims? It is true that the technology is not fully mature… yet. But it's maturing, fast: I would say it's around four-to-eight years from full maturity. And this is happening worldwide. In fact, around two or three years ago, there was an international con- ference on offshore wind energy, here in Malta. This generated a lot of excitement and 'buzz'… and ever since, as the technology continues to develop, the price has consistently fallen. One other thing that made a big difference was that the EU launched an Innovation Fund for next-generation technology, Malta is once again considering offshore windfarms to help meet its renewable energy targets. This time, however, Prof LUCIANO MULE-STAGNO, of the University's Institute for Sustainable Energy, believes that wind power will very soon be fully feasible PHOTO: JAMES BIANCHI / MALTATODAY Raphael Vassallo rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt