Mediterranean Action Plan

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ENERGY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN
Table 2. Today total electricity consumption is around 2,243 GWh/year (year 2003/2004) an
increase of 75 % over 1990/1991 when electricity consumption was 1,278 GWh. The
increase in electricity demand may be attributed to various factors including:
a) Changing lifestyles including increased purchases of and demands for various energyrelated
products and services. For example there has been a significant market
penetration of new equipment particularly air-conditioning systems which have
contributed to increases and shifts of the active power maximum demand (measured in
MW) in any one year from winter to summer.
b) General development and improvement in the country‟s infrastructure and services such
as:
a) the construction and commissioning of a new airport terminal in 1992,
b) the construction and commissioning of a number reverse osmosis plants between
1982– 1994 to satisfy potable water demands,
c) the construction Malta Freeport in 1988 and various projects subsequently
undertaken to expanding the facilities and increasing the equipment fleet. This
has resulted in an increase from 94,500 TEUs handled and 231 ship calls in 1990
to 1,461,174 TEUs handled and 1,698 ship calls in 2004 (Malta Freeport
Terminals Ltd, 2007)
d) construction of a number of yacht marinas and general upgrading of the country‟s
tourism‟s infrastructure,
e) Development and investment by the private sector including:
f) construction of various tourism related, large scale commercial and residential
development, private hospitals, nursing homes etc. which have all contributed to
a higher quality of life and improvement in services in Malta as well as
associated increases in electricity demand;
g) investment and setting up and/or expansion of operations of various industries
such as ST Microelectronics (Malta) Ltd, Playmobil (Malta) Ltd., Trelleborg Dowty
Malta Ltd, Lufthansa Technik Malta etc.,