I’ve been prompted lately by Simon’s recollecion of the last major power outage to take a hard look at the power supply in Singapore. We have 5 power generating companies in Singapore. Over the last 5-10 years, they have been re-tooling to move from using oil to natural gas. What I hear (need more research to confirm this) is that 70-80% of our electricity comes from gas today.

What I’ll like to propose is a 6th power generating ‘company’ in Singapore – one that harnesses the power of its people. Don’t be alarm, I am not proposing the Matrix-style human power plant per se. Here I am talking about opening up the energy market in a way that the people can choose to become their own electricity producer.

Yes, I am talking about opening up PUB, HDB and URA (do they have jurisdiction over private apartments and landed properties?) regulations to allow pro-green pro-sustainability Singaporeans to take action on their own to procure and setup a solar electric system right at their homes.

The key idea is not with the generation of solar power at the homes. It’s with opening up regulations to allow something called “Net Metering“. With Net Metering, household producers can redirect excess power back to the power grid, literally reversing the spinning disc in your power meter. That way, households can opt not to install a battery pool (which might be considered ‘unsafe’ for residential zones). This also lowers the upfront setup costs by quite a big chunk. Net metering is only one regulation change away. It’s not a technical issue because our world class power grid is already equipped to support that.

Next, you need to understand that the costs, even though it has dropped trememdously in the past years, still works out in excess of S$15,000-S$20,000 per household. This sum is mentally prohibitive because people tend to think about “how much can I save from my S$120-a-month electricity bill”. The government, with better foresight and thinking, will understand that the issue of limited and fluctuating supply of fossil fuels (and hence the availability of electricity) far outweighs that of economic-breakeven on the investment. As we liberalise our energy markets here to trade power in 30-minute-kW chunks, a power outage can easily trigger a price run to push your $120 bill up substantially. Hence, the government will want to encourage the people to invest. How? Well, for starters, consider a substantial percentage (50% and up) tax rebate on such investments. Furthermore, it can also give the banks a nudge to support loans and hire purchase towards the home-power-systems. I believe the ‘deadly’ combination of a tax rebate (read: 50% sale to the public) and low-interest financing will work very well in getting more households to install these power-systems, lower their consumption of non-renewable energy and subsequently cut down their CO2 emissions.

Will there be any impact on our privatised energy companies? Hardly. According to the IEA, in 2003, residential electricity usage comes up to about 4.9% of total electricity generated. Given the average net profit growths of 10-15% by our power companies, even a 10% conversion rate would hardly cause a dent in their corporate performance.

Who will pay for it? Well, tax rebates means lesser income to the government, which means something else will have to fund it. My argument is this: folks who make this investment are in fact ‘paying’ for an alternative that, should a shortage occur and a power outage ensues, they will not live in the dark; for most of us now, the only real alternatives are batteries and candles, so by putting our money into the solar-system, we are indirectly subsidising what the government would otherwise have to do – i.e. fund and build a multi-million dollar solar or wind farm, which sells ‘more expensive’ electricity that not enough might want to buy at the end of the day. My proposal is an arrangement that creates a win-win for both government and people (at least those who believe and is willing to pay for a more energy-secure future): to the earlier, the people are subsidising my renewable power plant, to the people, the government is subsidising my eletricity bills.

I think this makes for a good case to act on. What do you think?

PS: Well, personally I’m convinced and soon will be calling on the relevant authorities about regulations. For a start I will be commencing on a small project to measure the amount of sunlight we get in regular intervals. This would go some lengths in determining an optimal model and configuration that is suitable for Singapore and Singaporean houses. More on this when I get to it.