Straits Times 4 Oct 08;
IN ABOUT three years, buying electricity could become similar to choosing one's cellphone price plan - several plans to choose from, pre-paid cards, accounts to top up and even freebies thrown in.
By then, several rival companies could be in the picture, each vying for a slice of the household electricity pie and striving to come up with competitive pricing and strategies that will benefit the consumer.
The Energy Market Authority (EMA) will create such a scenario in a six-month pilot involving 1,000 households in Marine Parade and West Coast starting next month.
If this dry run works well, the system will be implemented in the 1.2 million households here in about three years.
Liberalising the market for household electricity will bring in companies to rival Singapore Power, which is now the only player.
Competition among the players could shrink electricity bills for households.
Electricity prices have already come down by 3 to 8 per cent among industrial users of electricity, following the opening up of that sector to competition.
Power companies may even throw in freebies such as air-conditioners to entice users to sign up with them, said EMA chief executive Khoo Chin Hean.
Electricity tariffs have been going up since July last year on the back of rising fuel oil prices. The latest jump of 21 per cent, the largest in seven years, took effect on Wednesday; tariffs went from 25.07 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh) to 30.45 cents per kwh.
The households taking part in the EMA's pilot will each get a free wireless gadget which measures the amount of energy they use, including hourly consumption, so they know when to cut back.
The gadget will also display what they have to pay, down to the last cent, as well as the amount left on the family's pre-paid electricity account.
EMA's deputy chief executive, Mr Lawrence Wong, said each 'vendor' created for the trial will offer its own peak and off-peak tariffs and users can choose the one they want.
Participating households will not end up paying more than households outside the pilot, said Mr Wong.
Take, for example, a household which picks a peak-hour tariff of 32 cents per kwh and an off-peak one of 28 cents per kwh: If its bill is smaller than what the family would have paid under actual tariffs, it will pocket the savings. If the bill ends up higher, the family will be refunded the difference.
Mr Eugene Toh, a senior analyst working on the system, said: 'This way, there would be no loss to the participants.'
LIAW WY-CIN
