Interruptible load: new partnerships for better energy management

Today´s deregulated power markets provide benefits which could not be reaped in the era of vertically integrated monopoly utilities. Having embarked on the reform path, Singapore was the first Asian country to implement an electricity spot market. Among other benefits, this market has introduced competition, given larger consumers the ability to choose their electricity supplier and made the price-setting mechanism transparent, through unbundling of the components of the total electricity cost paid by contestable consumers. Importantly, it has also promoted product innovation. Giving consumers the opportunity to compete in the reserve market through interruptible load (IL) is one such innovation. Prior to the introduction of IL, consumers could not participate actively in any of the wholesale energy markets. The paper´s primary focus is to explain the current IL arrangement, its operation, the challenges faced in implementing this scheme and what can be done to help increase its uptake in Singapore