Households, businesses to benefit from energy plans

Households, businesses to benefit from energy plans
Posted: 11 March 2013 1644 hrs
     
SINGAPORE: Households and businesses will stand to benefit from more advanced energy management systems and dynamic pricing plans that will help reduce their energy costs.

The government will increase competition in the electricity retail market, by lowering the contestability threshold for Commercial and Industrial (C&I) consumers.

The threshold will go down from the current 10MWh to 4MWh by October next year.

Minister in Prime Minister's Office S Iswaran said in Parliament when fully implemented, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across all sectors will benefit.

He said town councils will also be a key beneficiary as all of them would be able to negotiate for retail packages at competitive market prices.

He assured the needy will continue to receive assistance.

Mr Iswaran said: "Notwithstanding these efforts, we recognise that energy costs may still be a cause for concern for some households. Our policy is to allow the price of our energy to reflect its true cost and not to subsidise energy consumption, which would be wasteful and unsustainable.

"Instead, we provide targeted assistance to low- and middle-income households through the permanent Utility-Save (U-Save) rebates which were announced in last year's Budget. This year's Budget has doubled the U-Save rebates across all categories of HDB households, via an additional one-off GST Voucher-U-Save special payment."

- CNA/xq

- wong chee tat :)