National Statistics Office of Malta 

Regional, Geospatial, Energy and Transport Statistics Unit

National Statistics Office

Lascaris

Valletta, VLT 2000

Malta

European statistics on electricity prices for household and final non-household customers.

Internal Eurostat classification system based on annual electricity consumption bands and tax levels.

Household sector and final non-household sector (industry, services, offices, agriculture, etc).

The prices are reported in national currencies per kWh and according to different bands of consumption.

For the household sector, these bands are:

• DA: customers consuming less than 1000 kWh.
• DB: customers consuming 1000 kWh or more but less than 2500 kWh.
• DC: customers consuming 2500 kWh or more but less than 5000 kWh.
• DD: customers consuming 5000 kWh or more but less than 15000 kWh.
• DE: customers consuming 15000 kWh or more.

For the final non-household sector, the bands are:

• IA: customers consuming less than 20 MWh.
• IB: customers consuming 20 MWh or more but less than 500 MWh.
• IC: customers consuming 500 MWh or more but less than 2000 MWh.
• ID: customers consuming 2000 MWh or more but less than 20000 MWh.
• IE: customers consuming 20000 MWh or more but less than 70000 MWh.
• IF: customers consuming 70000 MWh or more but less than 150000 MWh.
• IG: customers consuming 150000 MWh or more.

There exist 2 different levels of disaggregation for semestrial and annual prices:

1- Semestrial prices:

These prices are reported twice a year and are divided in 3 levels:

• Level 1 prices: prices excluding taxes and levies.
• Level 2 prices: prices excluding VAT and other recoverable taxes and levies.
• Level 3 prices: prices including all taxes and levies.

2- Annual prices:

These prices are reported once a year together with the data for the second semester and are divided into the following components and taxes:

• Energy and supply: generation, aggregation, balancing energy, supplied energy costs, customer services, after-sales management and other supply costs.
• Network cost: transmission and distribution tariffs, transmission and distribution losses, network costs, after-sale service costs, system service costs, and meter rental and metering costs.
• Value added taxes (VAT): as defined in Council Directive 2006/112/EC.
• Renewable taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to the promotion of renewable energy sources, energy efficiency and CHP generation.
• Capacity taxes: Taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to capacity payments, energy security and generation adequacy; taxes on coal industry restructuring; taxes on electricity distribution; stranded costs and levies on financing energy regulatory authorities or market and system operators.
• Environmental taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to air quality and for other environmental purposes; taxes on emissions of CO₂ or other greenhouse gases. This component includes the excise duties.
• Nuclear taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges relating to the nuclear sector, including nuclear decommissioning, inspections and fees for nuclear installations.
• All other taxes: taxes, fees, levies or charges not covered by any of the previous five categories: support for district heating; local or regional fiscal charges; island compensation; concession fees relating to licences and fees for the occupation of land and public or private property by networks or other devices.

In addition to these elements, the network cost is split into the respective shares of transmission and distribution. The relative share of consumption in the different consumption bands is reported by the countries and used to calculate the single national electricity prices (weighted averages for consumer bands IA-IF and DA-DE) but not published because it could be used to re-calculate some confidential values.

In Malta, the VAT and the excise duties are not refundable.

Currently there are no subsidy schemes in place for the customers.

Household and final non-household consumers divided into consumption bands.

Household customers: Data coming from one administrative source and representing 100% of the household customers.

Final non-household customers: Data coming from one administrative source and representing 100% of the final non-household customers.

MALTA (MT)

Electricity prices data for Malta are available since 1991. 

Not applicable.

Prices are reported in national currency per kWh. However, Eurostat also calculates and publishes the prices in EURO and PPS (purchasing power parity).
Relative shares of sub-component of the network component and consumption volumes are reported in percentages.

For semestrial prices, the reference periods are from January to June for semester 1 and from July to December for semester 2.

For annual prices, the reference period is the whole calendar year (from January to December).

At EU level:

• Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices and repealing Directive 2008/92/EC (Text with EEA relevance).
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/2169 of 21 November 2017 concerning the format and arrangements for the transmission of European Statistics on natural gas and electricity prices pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Text with EEA relevance).
• Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1734 of 14 November 2018 granting derogations to the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of Spain, the Italian Republic and the Republic of Cyprus as regards the provision of statistics pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under document C(2018) 7465) (Text with EEA relevance).
• Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/803 of 17 May 2019 concerning the technical requirements regarding the content of quality reports on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

At national level:

• The Malta Statistics Authority (MSA) Act (LEĠIŻLAZZJONI MALTA (legislation.mt)) empowers the NSO to collect, compile, extract and release official statistics related to demographic, social, environment, economic and general activities and conditions of Malta.

At EU level:

• Eurostat does not share the data collected with other organisation apart from its usual dissemination channel (Eurostat's database, statistic explained articles and press or news releases) .

At national level:

• Data is sent to eurostat.

At EU level:

• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

At national level:

The NSO requests information for the compilation of official statistics according to the articles of the MSA Act – Cap. 422 and the Data Protection Act – Cap. 586 of the Laws of Malta implementing the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Article 40 of the MSA Act stipulates the restrictions on the use of information while Article 41 stipulates the prohibition of disclosure of information. Furthermore, Section IX of the Act (Offences and Penalties) lays down the measures to be taken in case of unlawful exercise of any officer of statistics regarding confidentiality of data.

Since its inception, the NSO has always assured that all data collected remains confidential and that it is used for statistical purposes only according to the articles and derogations stipulated in the laws quoted above.  The Office is obliged to protect the identity of data providers and refrain from divulging any data to third parties that might lead to the identification of persons or entities.

During 2009, the NSO has set up a Statistical Disclosure Committee to ensure that statistical confidentiality is observed, especially when requests for microdata are received.

Upon employment, all NSO employees are informed of the rules and duties pertaining to confidential information and its treatment. In line with stipulations of the MSA Act, before commencing work, every employee is required to take an oath of secrecy whose text is included in the same Act.

An internal policy on anonymisation and pseudo-anonymisation is in place to ascertain that adequate methods are used for the protection of data which the office collects and shares with the public in its capacity as the National Statistics Office.  The policy is meant to safeguard confidentiality of both personal and business data entrusted to the NSO.  The document provides guidance for all NSO employees who process data on a daily basis as to how anonymisation and pseudo-anonymisation methods should be applied.  The policy applies to all confidential, restricted and internal information, regardless of form (paper or electronic documents, applications and databases) that is received, processed, stored and disseminated by the NSO.

Published data should not allow identification of single consumers.

Confidential data are not shown. In the approach used, only aggregation of the confidential data split by the corresponding consumption band is disseminated.

NSO does not publish any data on electricity prices at national level.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Electricity prices in Malta are published on a semestrial basis on Eurostat's website.

There is no national press release related to the data.

There is no other national publication related to the data.

There is no national database related to the data.

There is no national databases related to the data.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

The definitions and methodology of Eurostat’s Compilers guide on European Statistics on natural gas and electricity prices have been followed.  In-depth documentation on methodology used is being provided in various sections of this report.

Not applicable.

The NSO has developed an internal Quality Management Framework (QMF) which is built on common requirements of the ESS Code of Practice (ESS CoP).  A document was prepared to include a set of general quality guidelines spanning over all statistical domains.  Assuring methodological soundness is an integral part of the QMF, nonetheless, the document spans also on other areas related to institutional aspects.

The quality assurance procedures detailed in Eurostat’s Compilers guide on European Statistics on natural gas and electricity prices have been applied.

The quality of the data is very good due to absence of errors. The data will be already checked once we receive it from the source. Then the NSO does further checking and any discrepancies found from past data are verified with the source.

The data source conducts its own quality assessments, however, the NSO verifies the data submitted by the source for implausible combinations, consistency across time, data gaps and coherence. Such consistency checks ensure that the overall quality of the data is good.

On a national level, electricity prices data are not published. This data is only sent to Eurostat on a semestrial basis.

Not available.

The only table that is not filled is table 3. Figures for table 3 are not available and thus they are flagged as ‘O’. The reason behind it is that currently there is no distinction in the network costs between the transmission costs and the distribution costs. Thus, percentages cannot be calculated. Refer to section 18.5 for further information on the other tables. 

Only 4 data points are not reported out of 148. These 4 refer to the figures in table 3 for household and non-household which are not available. 

Due to absence of errors, the accuracy of the data is considered very good.

There are no sampling errors as sampling is not performed in this data collection as 100% of the population is represented.

There are no sampling errors as sampling is not performed in this data collection as 100% of the population is represented.

Information is included in the sub-concepts S.13.3.1-S.13.3.5.

There are no coverage errors as sampling is not performed in this data collection as 100% of the population is represented.

There is no over-coverage.

All data is coming from one administrative source.

Once NSO receives electricity prices data from the source, it covers 100% of the population. The task of the NSO is that of comparing prices with previous years data and check for any discrepancies.

There is no non-response error.

Sampling is not performed in this data collection and thus 100% of the population is covered. Malta has only one supplier and it provides the administrative data required to complete the questionnaire. There is no unit non-response error.

The only figures that are not provided are those in table 3 which are not available from the source.

Once NSO receives electricity prices data from the source, it assumes that it has no issues with regards to processing errors. The task of the NSO is that of comparing prices with previous years data and check for any discrepancies.

Not Applicable.

The administrative data source is requested to provide the electricity price data within two/three months after the reference period. After arrival, the statistical office checks the micro-data for correctness, consistency and completeness and national averages are calculated and reported to Eurostat during the third month after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2019 was sent 91 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2019 was sent 97 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2020 was sent 92 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2020 was sent 82 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for households for the 1st semester of 2021 was sent 89 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for households for the 2nd semester of 2021 was sent 83 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2019 was sent 91 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2019 was sent 97 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2020 was sent 92 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2020 was sent 82 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for non-households for the 1st semester of 2021 was sent 89 days after the reference period.

The first version of the electricity price questionnaire for non-households for the 2nd semester of 2021 was sent 83 days after the reference period.

When NSO transmits the questionnaire for semester 2, a revised version of semester 1 is provided as well. The reason behind this is that the data up until NSO provides semester 1, does not capture all the units used. Also, when NSO transmits semester 1 of the following year, a revised version of semester 2 of the previous year is also transmitted.

Although in the revised submissions updates were made, there was no break in series.

The legal deadline for submitting the questionnaires is the third month after the reference period.

Data was transmitted to Eurostat on time in our recent submissions.

Questionnaires were submitted according to their legal deadline.

In order to ensure comparability across all Member States, the definitions for electricity prices as stipulated in the Regulation (EU) 2016/1952 of the European Parliament and of the council of 26 October 2013 on European statistics on natural gas and electricity prices and repealing Directive 2008/92/EC were strictly adhered to. In addition, attention was devoted to the reporting of variables to ensure utmost adherence to the established criteria, specifications and regulations.

It should be noted that since in Malta there are only the Value Added Tax and the excise duties, comparisons cannot be made with other Member states for the remaining taxes.

Not applicable.

To ensure comparability with previously reported data, the NSI deemed as important to extract data from a well-established data source which were also utilised for previous data reporting exercises. The only difference from Semester 1 of the year 2017 onwards is that of the excise duties. In previous submissions the excise tax was aggregated with the total electricity prices. In recent submissions, the excise tax was removed from the variable All taxes excluded in table 1 and in table 2 and was listed under the variable Environmental taxes. Although in the revised submissions updates were made, there was no break in series.

The length of the time series is from 1991 to 2021.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

For Malta, annual prices are coherent with the semestrial prices.

Since the data covers 100% of the population, the administrative source has to compile electricity prices on data that is collected throughout the year up to the extraction data. That is why when the NSO submits figures for one semester, revisions are made on the previous semester, because more collection of data is done by that time.

Revision of data compliant with the ESS Code of Practice principles.

At the NSO, there is currently no internal policy governing revisions that occur for all statistics produced.  Nonetheless, a revisions policy is being drafted to safeguard a coordinated revisions system across statistical domains. This policy will take account of the need and causes for revisions; time and frequency of revisions; data and other statistical products affected by such revisions; and length of periods revised.

Semester 1 data are revised when submitting the semester 2 data for consistency reason between semestrial and annual prices.

Household electricty prices collection: 0.01345579

Non-household electricity prices collection: 0.005631976

Electricity Prices

The source for electricity prices data is Enemalta plc which provides us with ARMS billing data. From Enemalta, NSO receives administrative data which is used to compile the submissions sent to Eurostat on a semestrial basis.

Network Costs

The source for the network costs is the Enemalta plc which is the energy services provider in Malta. Each year, NSO receives the amount for the network costs for that particular year.

NSO collects data from Enemalta plc, a month prior to submitting the corresponding semester to Eurostat.

NSO requests administrative data from Enemalta plc. It provides electricity prices disaggregated by the corresponding consumption band.

The administrative source has validation rules in place and also experts that analyse the data further in cases where there are discrepancies in the data from one year to another.

NSO requests data from Enemalta plc, for the semester that is required to send to Eurostat. In the administrative data, the following variables are provided: (i) the amount of units used in Malta, (ii) the sum of charge for these amounts and (iii) the price per kWh. This data is disaggregated by each consumption band. The source provides such figures for the Residential, Domestic and Non-Residential which comply with the definitions used by other countries.

Once this data is received, some checks are undertaken even though it would have already been validated by the source. The data is compared with the previous two semesters to check if there are any major changes in any of the bands. For all the found inconsistencies, NSO queries the source to obtain the reasoning behind these changes from one semester to another.

For the electricity price questionnaire for households, NSO uses the figures for the Residential and the Domestic. In table 1 for the variable ‘All taxes excluded’ the excise tax is removed from the sum of charge to obtain the electricity prices. The excise tax is the only tax included in the sum of charge that needs to be obtained separately. In Malta, the excise tax is of €1.50 per MWh. In the variable ‘VAT excluded’ the excise tax is included but the VAT is not added. In the final variable ‘All taxes + VAT included’, the VAT is added to the figures in the variable ‘VAT excluded’.

In table 2 a disaggregation of the taxes is provided. This table is only sent in Semester 2. Enemalta plc provides the network costs for the corresponding year. First, the VAT is calculated, which is now calculated on averages of the whole calendar year. The excise tax in Malta is of €1.50 per MWh and falls under the variable ‘Environmental taxes’. Then the variable ‘Energy and supply’ is the amount when the network costs, the VAT and the Environmental taxes are subtracted.

Figures for table 3 are not available and thus they are flagged as ‘O’.

In table 4 the consumption volumes (%) for each consumption band are provided. Again, this table is only sent in Semester 2. The sum of units obtained from the administrative source are used to calculate such percentages.

When NSO transmits the questionnaire for semester 2, a revised version of semester 1 is provided as well. The reason behind this is that the data up until NSO provides semester 1, does not capture all the units used. Also, when NSO transmits semester 1 of the following year, a revised version of semester 2 of the previous year is also transmitted.

The same procedure is followed for the electricity price questionnaire for non-households. In this case, the administrative data corresponding to the Non-Residential is used.

All the figures submitted to Eurostat were not imputed since administrative data is used. 

Not applicable.

Seasonable adjustments are not carried out.