Gas or induction hob in a Maltese kitchen

If you have just bought a shell in Malta and you are used to a British or northern European house, the first surprise in the kitchen is usually the gas. There is no gas main running down the street to your meter. Domestic cooking gas here is typically bottled LPG: a cylinder, standing in a cabinet or outside, connected by a regulator and hose.

That is not quite the same as saying piped gas does not exist. The Regulator for Energy and Water Services (REWS) authorises the storage, distribution and retail of LPG, and the categories it lists include retail and distribution of portable cylinders, bulk LPG, and fixed piped LPG networks. So piped LPG is a recognised category of activity. But for a flat or a townhouse you are fitting out, the realistic assumption is a bottle.

What the gas costs

REWS publishes retail LPG prices. The ones on its consumer page are stated as being in effect from 1 April 2020; the page itself was last updated 8 May 2025. There are two products, LPG mix and propane, each sold loose by the kilogram and in three cylinder sizes.

REWS also hosts a historical price file covering January 2005 to May 2022.

Two practical consequences follow from the cylinder, and they have nothing to do with cooking performance. The first is storage: a 12 kg or 25 kg bottle needs somewhere to live, and that somewhere has to be designed into the cabinetry before the carcasses are made, not discovered afterwards. The second is that you run out — at some point, usually mid-meal, and you then need a spare or a delivery. Neither of those appears on a hob spec sheet.

What induction asks of the supply

Induction moves the problem to the electricity side. The question is not whether the hob is good; it is whether your service can feed it.

Take a real example. The Whirlpool 60 cm AKT8090NE, sold in Malta, has four induction zones with a total connected power of 6.2 kW: front left 180 mm at 1,700 W, front right 145 mm at 1,200 W, rear left 210 mm at 2,100 W, rear right 145 mm at 1,200 W. The product page states no voltage or amp rating — only those loads. For comparison, the Bosch PGH6B5K90 gas hob has four burners (one at 1.0 kW, one at 3.3 kW, two at 1.75 kW), 7.8 kW total, with integrated ignition.

Maltese domestic services are single phase or three phase, and REWS publishes an annual service fee for each, including VAT:

Services above 60 A three-phase also pay €21.05 per year per kW of maximum demand, on top of the fee.

The consumption rates sit alongside those fees. REWS lists two schedules, both effective 31 March 2014, headed 'Residential' and 'Domestic'. The page does not explain which household falls under which, so neither will we.

Note the shape of those bands. The step from the 6,001–10,000 band to the 10,001–20,000 band roughly doubles the unit rate. If you are already running air conditioning, a heat-pump water heater and a pool pump, the marginal cost of an additional electrical load is not the headline figure at the top of the table. REWS adds that the published rates are for information only and that the rates with legal force are those in the Electricity Connection and Supply Regulations (S.L.545.41).

If your existing service is not adequate, the route is Enemalta's Application Form Be, for alteration of an electricity service. The same forms page lists Form A for requesting a new electricity and/or water service, Form Te for temporary supply, and Form F to register a change in consumer. Each form lists the regulations it falls under and the supporting documents required. Enemalta customer care is on 153. Do this early: a shell fit-out has a lot of sequencing, and a supply alteration is not something to discover you need after the worktop is templated.

What the hobs cost

These are list prices at Newline Living Concept in Victoria, Gozo, read on 5 October 2026. Prices change, and some of these were already showing reductions on the day.

On the day we looked, both the Whirlpool AKT8090NE and the Bosch PGH6B5K90 product pages showed a sale price of €399.01 — the Whirlpool reduced from €469.01. So at the top of the gas range and the bottom of the induction range, the appliances cost the same money. The price difference between the two technologies is real only at the cheap end: €129 buys a gas hob and does not buy an induction one.

Newline lists free delivery to Malta and Gozo on the Bosch gas hob. That is worth noticing generally, because if you are buying in Gozo or having goods sent there, every delivery involves a ferry, and who absorbs that cost varies by retailer and by product.

The trade-offs, stated plainly

• Gas has a lower entry price, a published and regulated fuel price, and a cylinder you have to house, replace and not run out of.
• Induction has no fuel logistics at all, but it adds a connected load — 6.2 kW on the example above — to a supply whose capacity and annual service fee you need to check before you commit, and whose unit rate rises steeply at higher annual consumption.
• At €399 the two sit level on purchase price, so the decision at that level is about the supply and the storage, not the appliance.

One more point if you are considering buying the appliance in Sicily, which is a ferry ride away and often carries the same Italian brands. Within the EU, VAT is paid once, in the country of purchase. What does not change is everything above: the hob still has to run on a Maltese bottle or a Maltese electricity service, and the connected load and the cylinder cupboard are the same problem wherever you bought the box.

Decide the hob type before the cabinet drawings are signed off. A cylinder cupboard and a supply alteration are both cheap to plan and expensive to retrofit.