SINGAPORE -- Singapore is on its way to completely liberalizing its electricity retail market, hoping to bring more choices to consumers and diversify its energy sources. Some 80% of the market in terms of power consumption is already open to competition, and the rest is to be liberalized by the end of next year. In an interview with The Nikkei, Trade and Industry Minister S Iswaran spoke of his ambition and expectation to "create a lot more options for electricity retailers," underscoring the importance of the change.
Singapore has been gradually liberalizing its electricity market since 2001. To show the effectiveness of the progress so far, Iswaran pointed out that as of June, 44% of companies in the newly liberalized market had opted out of their existing contracts in search of better deals. He said this fact "suggests to me that there is obviously significant saving."
