Desmond Wong Channel NewsAsia 12 May 10;
SINGAPORE: Energy demand in Singapore jumped 14 per cent on-year in the first quarter of this year - lifted by a rebounding economy.
The Energy Market Company (EMC), which operates Singapore's wholesale energy market, says that this could also see supply tighten over 2010.
Industrial activity has been picking up along with the economic recovery.
And this has helped boost demand for wholesale energy in Singapore by double digits in the first quarter.
EMC says demand has been growing for four straight months now.
Dave Carlson, CEO, Energy Market Company, said: "It's been 3 per cent higher from the last quarter, and compared to the same quarter of last year, we're up 14 per cent. About 75 per cent of Singapore's usage of electricity is from the commercial and industrial sectors, so the demand growth that we've seen would be aligned from increased activity in these sectors."
In the first quarter, average daily demand hit 4,863 megawatts, with a record spike of 6,261 megawatts racked up in one period last week when temperatures soared to 36 degrees Celsius.
Prices for wholesale energy also climbed in the first quarter, with the Uniform Singapore Energy Price (USEP) more than doubling on-year to S$191.45 per megawatt hour.
(VIZ)
Wholesale power prices have little bearing over home tariffs, which are under a different pricing scheme.
EMC says higher demand could lead to tighter supply of energy this year.
Prices could trend up with higher oil prices, even though Singapore uses mainly gas for power.
Mr Carlson continued: "The gas itself is also linked to fuel oil prices, and what's driven that is that in this part of the world, most of the gas supply has been from the fields directly to the point of consumption, and are long term bilateral contracts, and there is no liquid gas market in the Asia Pacific rim."
While more than 2,000 megawatts of additional capacity are expected to come on line by 2013, EMC says that might not necessarily translate to lower wholesale prices, and volatile fuel markets as well as rising demand could send prices up rather than down.
- CNA/jy
Singapore electricity demand surges to all-time high
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 13 May 10;
(SINGAPORE) With Singapore's economy rebounding, electricity demand here 'has also come back very strongly', with double-digit year-on-year growth in the first four months of 2010, Energy Market Company CEO Dave Carlson said yesterday.
'We have also seen a new high,' he added, with peak electricity demand here spiking to an all-time record of 6,261 megawatts last Friday afternoon.
This was not only because of the busy industries and businesses like the two new integrated resorts, but also reflected extra cooling needed to combat high temperatures experienced here, he added.
'The temperature averaged 30 degrees Celsius last week, up from 28.9 Celsius the week before,' Mr Carlson said.
Disclosing this during a media briefing of EMC's 2009 report on the national electricity market of Singapore, he said electricity demand here has a close correlation with GDP growth - with the government recently upgrading its Gross Domestic Product forecast for 2010 to 4.5-6.5 per cent.
'Singapore has a small (electricity) system, so a large number of industries locating here, or the start up of a new refining complex (like Shell's new US$3 billion petrochemical complex) can have a significant impact on demand,' Mr Carlson said.
This is reflected in the 16.9 per cent year-on-year electricity demand growth here in March and 12.5 per cent in April, he added.
Furthermore, peak electricity demand rose above 6,000 MW in February, March and April - which is the highest since the national electricity market here started in 2003.
Average electricity demand in Q1 this year of 4,863 MW was also 14 per cent higher than the 4,267 MW of Q1, 2009, the EMC data showed.
Along with demand, wholesale electricity prices, largely reflected by the Uniform Singapore Electricity Price, also rose by 19 per cent in Q1 compared with Q4 last year.
Higher electricity demand but greater use of more steam turbines by the generating companies contributed to this. The latter was due to maintenance of the more-efficient combined cycle gas turbines, EMC said, although BT earlier reported that hiccups in piped Indonesian gas supplies was another cause.
Another factor is rising oil prices since Q3 last year, with high sulphur fuel oil prices (on which Singapore's piped natural gas supplies are pegged) averaging US$75.53 in Q1 this year, and around US$78 last month.
Reflecting the greater competition following the entry of new players (which bought over the three biggest gencos here), Mr Carlson said that EMC has firstly seen a greater tussle for market share.
Given the capacity cap on the three biggest gencos here, their new owners are also investing in repowering older plants (like at PowerSeraya and Senoko Energy), as well as building new more efficient capacity, like Tuas Power's coal/biomass plant, he added.
Other new entrants like Island Power are also emerging, while oil giants like Shell have just added a new 60MW steam turbine, and ExxonMobil is building another 220MW cogen plant.
