Open Electricity Market has been available in Singapore since 2018, though Mr Salty only went on the bandwagon in mid 2019, when he bought his new 4-room HDB flat.
The technicalities of why Singapore wanted to have an open electricity market or how it is actually implemented is beyond Mr Salty’s plain mind. All he knows is that with the open electricity market, there are more providers. These providers either offer electricity at a lower price, or with flexible usage.
Many website have already compared the services of these electricity providers. If you ask Mr Salty, he would say that, unless you are a very heavy user, the minute price differences between those packages won’t make much differences to one’s bills. Yes, the keyword is “VERY HEAVY”.
Which is why Mr Salty would like to think of how these providers offer packages for a variety of needs.
Electricity for Eco Warriors
For example, Geneco offers “100% Carbon Neutral” electricity (link opens up PDF) – which is very suitable for those who are environmentally conscious. What Geneco (which, by the way, is pronounced as Gen-e-co. Mentioning this, cos Mr Salty kept calling it Gene-co) does is to enroll customers in that plan into a carbon offset program, so that customers can rev up their aircon 24/7 without feeling guilty for ruining Mother Earth.
Electricity for Night Warriors
And then there’s Pacific Light that offers the best discounted rate for electricity used between 11pm – 7am. i.e. If you use electricity when no one else is using, then you will get everything’s worth. Mr Salty seriously considered this plan for a day. Well, he does turn on the aircon to sleep at night – though he turns it on from 8pm when he reaches home, till 7am when he leaves for work.
People who advocated for it was like: you can do your laundry at night! Woohoo! Assuming we start our laundry at 11pm, the wash will end at about 11:40pm. Then we can chuck it into the dryer (because technology has not yet to be so advanced that it will be automatic) and leave it to dry. Except that if the clothes didn’t really dry as much as you expected, you’ll only find out the next morning (if you have time before rushing off to work), which by then means your clothes will be a wrinkled stinky mess.
So much for doing household chores after 11pm. But this is a very good plan if you have a maid for you to torture who has a more flexible time in doing household chores.
So, after looking through all these interesting plans, what did Mr Salty get then?
Why Keppel Electric?
Well, as the blog title said it already, he ended up choosing Keppel Electric. The reasons were quite straightforward:
- First local electricity retailer – so it has the experience
- Strong backing with “Keppel Brand” – There’s no fear (though low chance) that it will collapse one day and leave Mr Salty with no aircon or WiFi.
- Sign on perks – Some retailers really offer generous perks… Perks that didn’t really appeal/apply to Mr Salty. When Mr Salty signed up, he got 10,000 ((if he don’t remember wrongly) NTUC Link Points. Yup, Mr Salty is very auntie when it comes to freebies.
User Interface
Everything, from sign on to maintaining the account, was done on the internet portal. That portal looked fugly on PC, but OK on the app. Guess it was designed for mobile.
That being said, the best user experience was on the app and it was really intuitive to use. Looking back, Mr Salty only used the app to check the usage every month and to check if the bill (which was set to automatic payment) was paid.
It was said that the best user experience is one where the user doesn’t even realise he was enjoying the service. So yes, it was only until the point of writing this post that Mr Salty began to seriously think hard about his experience using the app – which was no complaints!
Other User Experience
Mr Salty thought that there would be an electricity disruption during the switch over. At least there should be a moment when his TV and lights would shut off and on, right?
Well, that only existed in Mr Salty’s mind. None of that happened. The only time he realised he was using Keppel Electric was when the bill came. So there was a month when SP’s bill came, but it only contained the bill for the water. Keppel Electric’s bill only came 1 month later.
So for those looking for some cheap thrill from not paying electricity bill for one month, you can try switching to Keppel Electric.
So far, Mr Salty’s bill has been around $15. This was supposed to be lower than what many would pay for a 4-room flat. So in that sense, Mr Salty really snagged a deal (which, to be frank, was not intentional).
Enjoy $40 Rebate Off First Electricity Bill
Mr Salty thought that since he enjoyed this service so much, he would actually put his head on the chopping board by offering his referral link to readers of Mr Salty.
Everybody who signed up using the link provided below will get a $40 rebate off their first electricity bill. This is quite substantial, especially if your household clocks up more than $100 worth of electricity bills every month!
And to be upfront, Mr Salty will also get rebates from each successful referral also. Nothing to hide. However, this is what we call win-win.
Remember, salty is life!