This project aims at investigating how the Maltese energy system could move towards more sustainability in order to comply with the European targets for 2020, while maintaining system stability and being cost effective.
The results in this project point out that sufficient renewable energy source [RES] potential is prevalent on Malta in order to install sufficient RES technology capacity to reach the assigned country’s specific 10 % RES share on final energy consumption within the 2020 EU target guideline. Despite the currently backlogged development of RES technologies in the Maltese energy system and despite severe land utilisation conflicts in relation with the deployment of RES, a first step towards a decarbonisation of the Maltese energy sector is possible and is rather a political issue than a technical or economic problem.
The major role for a transformation of Malta’s energy system would lie in the use of solar water heaters and heat pumps, which would have almost no impact in regards of the land consumption issue and on the energy system’s stability. Both options imply positive economic, environmental and system stabilizing effects for Malta’s energy system. The installation of PV technology, which would have the highest theoretic potential among all considered technologies in this project, is strongly restrained through Malta’s geography and its energy system design. However, PV technology is also a viable solution when deployed in bounds according to a limitation of excess energy production. A major improvement for Malta’s energy system would be the introduction of e-mobility, which would have a positive impact on the use of PV panels as well.
All the considered measures in this project, the technically maximal deployment of SWHs and HPs as well as a PV share of nearly 30 % within power production would allow increasing the RES share on final energy consumption from the current few percentage points to 20 % in 2030 without causing extra costs or system instability.