Third Power Company Exits Singapore's Retail Electricity Market

On Friday, power provider Ohm Energy announced that it has withdrawn from Singapore's retail electricity market, becoming the third company to do so in recent days.

Ohm Energy said it was ceasing operations because their plans' pricing, which is lower than the regulated tariff, had become unsustainable owing to the fluctuating electricity market.

The company is currently in the process of transferring customers to the state-owned SP Group.

iSwitch Energy, Singapore's fourth biggest independent electricity retailer, and SilverCloud Energy, a provider of energy to commercial, industrial, and residential structures, have also announced their exit from the Singapore market.

On October 13, iSwitch announced that it would suspend operations on November 11 because of "current electricity market situations."

Diamond Electric and Best Electricity Supply, company sources told Reuters earlier this week, have ceased taking new clients, with Diamond Electric in the process of handing over existing payment agreements to SP Group.

Best Electricity's website is no longer offering any options, and Diamond Electric's website offers only a zero-percent reduction off the current regulated cost of 25.8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Global wholesale gas prices have risen sharply in recent months as production and transit issues have slashed supply at a time when demand is surging in a post-pandemic economic recovery, driving up power prices in many nations and resulting in blackouts in others.

Open Electricity Market, a website that allows Singapore residents to choose an energy supplier, lists only eight of the country's 12 existing retailers as offering consumer-friendly programs.

"While there have been warnings about the global energy price crisis for several weeks now, and recognition that it will spill over into Singapore's domestic electricity markets, recent events have come as a surprise," Dr. David Broadstock, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Energy Studies Institute, said in quotes by The Straits Times.

Earlier this month, Trade and Industry Minister Gan Kim Yong warned in a written parliamentary response that gasoline costs had more than doubled in the preceding 18 months and that global events would affect Singapore, which imports nearly all of its energy.