‘It was awful’: Gozo residents describe sleepless nights after power cuts

Gozo residents were left without electricity for hours at a time over the weekend, with one Xagħra household describing a night of candles, cold showers and sleeplessness as frustration grows over repeated power failures on the island.

A resident told GozoToday their area of Xagħra lost power at around 9pm on Friday, with electricity only returning at approximately 9:30am on Saturday.

The power then went off again at around 2pm, returning at approximately 6:30pm. The prolonged outage left the household struggling to cope with the heat, particularly with a dog and two cats at home.

They resorted to candles and torches, wet towels and cold showers to try to keep cool. Although they still had running water, the electricity cut also meant losing internet access and eventually being unable to keep mobile phones charged.
The household barely slept during the night.

By Saturday afternoon, they decided to leave home with their dog and spent several hours at their favourite brewery bar at Lord Chambray in Xewkija, where they could escape the heat, use air conditioning and recharge their phones.

The venue was particularly busy, as other people sought relief from the heat and the ongoing electricity disruption. They eventually returned home without knowing when the power would come back on. When it finally did, it came as a “major relief.”

The experience was not isolated. Other residents across Gozo reported lengthy outages, with one Fontana resident saying their area had already endured a four-hour outage before being hit by another interruption which lasted 13 hours.

In Victoria, another resident said electricity had been unavailable for around 26 hours, raising particular concern for elderly and sick people who were unable to use fans or air conditioning during the heat.

Residents also complained of spoiled food, disruption to businesses and the difficulty of going about everyday life without electricity for prolonged periods.

One resident took to Facebook demanding answers from Enemalta over why it had taken hours to locate faults affecting two of Gozo’s three 33kV electricity cables, where generators had been deployed and whether affected residents and businesses would be compensated.

Repeated outages

The latest disruption has also renewed concerns about the island’s wider electricity infrastructure. 

The Xagħra resident said their area had already experienced three separate power cuts of around three hours earlier this summer, which they understood were caused by local system failures.

Those problems were apparently addressed through the replacement of overhead cables. But residents are questioning whether the network is equipped to cope with continued development, particularly in areas seeing a rapid increase in apartment construction.

The concern is that newly built properties will place additional demand on an already heavily used electricity network once they are occupied.

Two cable faults left Gozo heavily dependent on one feeder

The outage was linked to faults affecting two of Gozo’s three 33kV high-voltage electricity feeders.

One fault was located in Xewkija during the early hours of Saturday, while the second was eventually located in Comino. With two of the three feeders unavailable, the remaining feeder could not provide enough capacity to restore electricity normally across the island.

Enemalta teams worked to repair the faults and restore supply slowly. 

The Comino repair presented additional logistical difficulties, with excavation equipment having to be transported to the island by barge so engineers could access the underground cable.

Enemalta subsequently confirmed that all three high-voltage cables supplying Gozo from Malta were back in operation following the completion of the Comino repairs.

The electricity supply was then restored across affected areas. But for residents who spent the weekend without reliable power, the episode has raised questions extending beyond the immediate technical faults.

They are calling for clearer answers on the resilience of Gozo’s electricity network, the availability of backup generation and whether the island’s infrastructure is capable of keeping pace with its growing population and development.