Open Electricity Made Simple

13 April 2019

# Open electricity,  electricity plans,  retailers, Singapore Power, SP
 http://tinyurl.com/y39mwl6k

What is Open Electricity?

Simply, it is just a market for buying and selling of electricity;  hopefully,  the consumers can get cheaper electricity through competitive buying and selling of electricity.

In the older days,  electricity is always generated by PUB (former of SP Group) who will also deliver and sell the electricity to its consumers directly at fixed and regulated rates.  

About 20 years ago in 1998,  the Authority started the Singapore Electricity Pool (SEP) to "test" the workings of the market.  Real retail marketing started only in July 2001 when they allowed only those consumers having 2 MW or more power requirement to buy electricity from the retailers.  This market has since opened up to smaller consumers but only now,  they will open it to the 1.3 million households and small businesses in Singapore. 

There are about 35 Electricity Retailers in Singapore.  Many bloggers have blogged about how to choose the right electricity plan and the procedure to choose can be quite complex and complicated.   The many option available is confusing.  This article will try to make it simple.

What Being Offered?

There are not less than 10 different plans offered by each electricity retailer.   Basically, they can be divided in to 3 categories and in each category,  there may contain 3 or more plans depending on the length of the Contracts Period.  The 3 categories are

1.  The DOT Plan (DOT)

2.  The Fixed Plan (FFP)

3.  The Knight or the Owl Plan (POP)

What is the Best Plan?

This article will help those novices or layman to choose the right plan.    It is understand that 80% of Singapore's electricity consumers are in this category.

To choose the right plan,  one will need to know one's electricity usage pattern and the relationship between the electricity and the oil market.  The oil market will affect the SP’s tariff and also the electricity generating prices.   It can be very complex 

The following table briefly describes the 3 types of electricity plans:

Type of Plan	What's this?	If SP's Tariff		If Oil Price		Reason to Choose this plan
		Increases	Reduces	Increases	Reduces
Discount Off Tariff Plan (DOT)	Pegged to SP's tariff @ a specific discount rate over contract period	The rate will follow SP's tariff accordingly to the discounted rate		SP's tariff will increase or decrease with oil prices according to an approved  working  formula		The SP's tariff will try to track closely to the oil price
Fixed Price Plan (FPP)	Rate is fixed constant over the contract period	No effects.  Consumers will lose out to DOT plan   if SP's tariff falls below the fixed price				The future oil price will be higher than the present oil price
Peak/off peak plan (POP)	Rate is fixed for peak hours (7:00 am - 11:00 pm) and for off-peak hour between 11:00 pm to 7:00 am)	No effects. Same as FPP plan except the effective or average rate will become slightly cheaper if consumer uses all or more electricity during off peak hours;  otherwise,  the effective rate would become  higher than the FPP plan				Ditto same as FPP except you use more electricity at night and the effective or average rate will work out to be lower than FPP
Note 1:  There are more than 1 plan in each category;  for example, choose a 3 month plan if one has no confident

The table  looks rather complicated but the following flow chart should simplify the decision making process

 (double click to enlarge)

 Something about the Supply from Singapore Power (SP)

At the present moment,  it was reported that only about 18% to 20% of the SP’s consumers have switched supply to the private retailers.  Singapore has over 1.4 million consumer accounts. 

Many SP's consumers did not know that they are paying a higher price because SP has been asked to sign a Vesting Contract (VC) with about 6 major generating companies (Gencos) to ensure there will be competition among the 6 Gencos.  What SP's consumers are paying is a Vesting Contract Price (VCP)  worked out by SP once every quarterly.  One can read more about this VC and VCP in here.    The VCP inclined to be generally higher than the market electricity price.

The Advice

If one is not familiar with how the market works,   the best advise is to switch the supplier to the DOT plan.  This is because the DOT plan will track the SP’s tariff and one will pay a rate at a discount % from the SP’s tariff.  

Note 1:   Your Electricity Retailers should show you the hidden cost if any such as "Transmission Losses" or what not including additional security deposits.  If not shown or unknown to you,  you should request for them before you evaluate and sign at the bottom line;

Note 2:   Your Electricity Bills from the Electricity Retailers should show the unit of your monthly electricity consumption in Kwh (Kilo-Watt hours).  If it is not shown anywhere in the bills,  request for it.   This should also apply to the security deposits or any hidden cost that you have paid so that it is known to you for the computation and the comparison of the electricity bills.  In case of any doubt or problem,  seek the help from Singapore Power or EMA.    You can contact EMA @ https://www.ema.gov.sg/contact_us.aspx or Open Electricity Market @ https://www.openelectricitymarket.sg/contact-us