Singapore launched first e-commerce site for energy

The choice to power businesses with clean energy is just a few clicks away with the launch of Singapore’s first e-commerce site for energy, Electrify.sg.

Southeast Asia’s first e-commerce platform for electricity has launched, making it easier for businesses in Singapore to choose renewable energy to power their operations.

Electrify.sg was set up by two former Sunseap executives and officially launched on July 12.

Based on a consumer’s power consumption habits gleaned from the site’s search filters, Electrify.sg uses a pricing engine to list a range of packages from third-party energy retailers.

Users can then compare prices and offers, before deciding on the most suitable option. They can also access alternative energy options such as clean energy and carbon offsets.

Singapore began liberalising its energy market in 2001, when commercial and industrial consumers who use more than 2,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per month became eligible for ‘contestability’, the ability to choose who to buy electricity from. By the second half of 2018, the industry will be fully liberalised with 1.3 million Singapore households able to pick their energy provider, which is known as full retail contestability.

Contestable consumers currently have three options to buy power: through customised plans with energy retailers, at the variable wholesale market price for energy, or return to the default SP Services tariff rate if their monthly consumption exceeds 4,000 kilowatt hours.

The options that will become available to domestic consumers next year have not yet been announced.

Before Electrify.sg, companies that wanted to buy from energy retailers besides the default provider, SP Services, had to run extensive online searches and make telephone calls for quotes to assess their options, said Martin Lim, co-founder and chief operations officer at Electrify.sg at a press conference last week. The terms for what each retailer offers are not usually standardised, meaning that customers would find it difficult to make like-for-like comparisons.

By contrast, founders of the start-up say it only takes four steps to search, compare and purchase a new power plan on Electrify.sg.

Source : Eco-business