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LoginQuestions to SP Service's Workshop on Elect Maint Today (24.
6 posts
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Two questions asked by me at the workshop at Somerset Auditorium today:-
(1) Why is SP Service charging the electricity supply in Singapore at such an extraordinarily high price as compared with OZ?
Is it because way back in the 1980s when government decided to privatize the electricity supply it has past all the infrastructure and asset costs to SP lock stock and barrel with consumers having to bear the infrastructure costs already paid previously by them under taxes all over again?
Answer: Singapore has to pay higher infrastructure costs as its supply cables are mostly underground as compared with other countries where cables are just carried over the air in pylons. Also 3/4 of the electricity tariff comprises the costs of imported oil. (3/4 of power used to generate electricity is generated by gas which is lower in cost not well explained)
(2) Will SP allow bigger consumers to supply their own electricity using their own generator sets to lower costs?
Answer: No given.
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to the second question, i think is a yes. however do the consumer have the expertises and have the cost of engaging a licence electrical worker to maintain the system being considered? What about engineering problems such as noise pollution and enviromental pollution being considered? I think this is a not practical solution.
however, there is fear that our power station being sold to foreign companies will have an impact in the future. How will the authority have control over them. Let's assume X/Y & Z power station sold to the foreign company demand a raised in the traiff charges and on being turn down could ransom us by not providing maintenance to their power station thus causing power interruption. Would that happened one day?
we will have to wait an see
Edited by SevenEleven 24 Jul `08, 6:31PM
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Originally posted by Fantagf:
These are not answers, these are crap. The utilities charge does not lower when petrol prices are cheaper.
I have asked these questions before but not been given any sensible answers to this day. In asking these questions, of SP I mentioned that in the case of SMRT initially the government found that the MRT could not make monies to cover the whole construction cost but later it has after so much internal public discussions finally decided to bear of the cost of construction of the MRT lines passing the operations to SMRT. This move has benefited us Singaporeans today for MRT has generated much more economic spin-offs to the rest of the economy.
If electricity supply infrastructure is to similarly borne by government as a one-time cost out of taxes or surpluses collected under extraordinary income nstead of allowing the government pocketing the whole profits from transferring the whole set-up to the privatized SP making all citizens to bear the high costs today we would be having a much more competitive business environment just like in the case of MRT.
I asked SP to do a study to compare how other countries are charging for electricity whether their charging is fully including the infrastructural or network costs.
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Originally posted by SevenEleven:
to the second question, i think is a yes. however do the consumer have the expertises and have the cost of engaging a licence electrical worker to maintain the system being considered? What about engineering problems such as noise pollution and enviromental pollution being considered? I think this is a not practical solution.
however, there is fear that our power station being sold to foreign companies will have an impact in the future. How will the authority have control over them. Let's assume X/Y & Z power station sold to the foreign company demand a raised in the traiff charges and on being turn down could ransom us by not providing maintenance to their power station thus causing power interruption. Would that happened one day?
we will have to wait an see
Of course I do not mean any tom dick and harry should install their own generator sets to supply their own in-house electricity. Larger users like big shopping centres or factories can any time afford to engage their own LEW and save monies using their own generator sets. I have sent such generator sets to the job sites in Indonesia before for my ex-employers who did not cost that much as the SP is currently charging. A 200KVA genset is less that $100K.
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When Ho Kwong Peng the then chairman was asked the question years back whether privatisation would result in cost saving to consumers, his answer was he could not guarantee it.
The whole government is passing costs of providing basic government services back to the people through the scheme of privatization of previously government services on necessities to the people and many GLCs were created.
These GLCs were set up taking over the assets previously owned by people paid through taxes lock stock and barrel with the transfer of profits from privatization to the government which keeps them for their own surpluses.
At the end people pay all the infrastructural costs together with higher wages incurred on all the GMs and CEOs who were previously civil servants paid bill collector civil servants' pays.
Thus GLCs will be charging higher costs for every basic government services from medicare to postal, telecommunications, utilities and transportation.
The root cause of our constantly rising costs of medicare, utilities and transportation is precisely because the government has made huge profits by transferring all the tax payers' infrastructural profits from privatisation to its own surpluses leaving the citizens to be fleeced by all the GLCs who now not only recover all the infrastructural costs all over again but are charging higher fees to cover higher costs of engaging glamorized GMs/CEOs for doing the same jobs and extra profits to pay shareholders and their own options.
Solution: Government use the privatization profits amounting to billions and return the monies back to taxpayers through endowment funds generating interests earned on such privatization profits to absorb the amortization costs on lands, buildings previously owned by people and all the utility assets, electricity networking charge, capacity charge etc. as was finally resolved in setting up MRT.
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