IN Brief:
- Nexans has completed manufacturing and testing of the high-voltage cable for Malta’s second Sicily interconnector.
- The project will provide an approximately 122km, 225MW HVAC link between Malta and mainland Europe.
- The cable adds redundancy to Malta’s existing interconnector and supports long-term grid resilience.
Nexans has completed manufacturing and testing of the high-voltage subsea cable for Malta’s second electricity interconnector with Sicily, moving the project toward its offshore installation phase.
The approximately 122km, 225MW HVAC connection will create an additional electricity route between Malta and the Italian island, strengthening the island’s link to mainland Europe’s power system. Installation work is expected to use the cable-laying vessel Electra once the project moves from factory completion to marine deployment.
Manufacturing has involved a multi-stage process covering fibre-optic cable production, copper conductor drawing, insulation, sheath extrusion, phase assembly, and armouring. That armoured construction is central to the cable’s subsea performance, where the asset must withstand the mechanical stresses of load-out, laying, seabed contact, burial, and long-term operation in a marine environment.
Malta’s first interconnector, commissioned in 2015, created the island’s physical electricity connection to the European grid. A second link adds redundancy to that system, reducing the risks associated with dependence on a single subsea route and giving system operators more room to manage import capacity, maintenance, outage planning, and domestic generation.
For an island electricity system, interconnection is not only a capacity question. Subsea links sit at the intersection of security of supply, system stability, repair logistics, and long-term resilience. A spare cable length will be stored in Malta for future repair needs, giving the operator access to a critical component that cannot be procured quickly once a fault has occurred.
Repair strategy is a defining part of subsea cable engineering. Fault location, marine mobilisation, cable recovery, jointing, testing, and recommissioning are specialist operations, often shaped by weather windows, vessel availability, seabed conditions, and the physical protection applied during original installation. A second cable gives Malta stronger operational options if maintenance or fault response affects either route.
Across Europe, interconnectors are increasingly being treated as strategic grid assets rather than simple import-export links. The development of hybrid offshore interconnector models reflects a broader direction in which subsea infrastructure supports renewable export, cross-border trading, and system resilience through more sophisticated electrical architectures.
Malta’s second interconnector follows a more conventional point-to-point design, but it responds to the same structural pressure: electricity systems need more controllable routes for moving power as demand grows and generation becomes more weather-dependent. For a small island grid, that capability has particular value because system disturbances can be harder to absorb when domestic generation and network options are limited.
The cable also highlights the industrial constraints behind grid expansion. High-voltage subsea cable manufacturing capacity is now under sustained pressure from offshore wind, island links, interconnectors, and transmission reinforcement programmes. Completing manufacture and testing gives Malta a clear delivery milestone, while also demonstrating how energy security increasingly depends on access to specialist industrial capacity.
Marine installation will bring its own engineering challenges, including route preparation, landfall works, cable protection, offshore laying, interface management, and commissioning. Each stage must be coordinated across civil, electrical, marine, and system-operation workstreams before the interconnector can become a live part of Malta’s electricity infrastructure.
Once commissioned, the second Malta–Sicily interconnector will give the island a stronger physical connection to mainland Europe. Its value will be measured in available capacity, but also in redundancy, repair readiness, system flexibility, and the ability to support a more resilient electricity supply as Malta’s power system continues to evolve.
