Singapore Electricity & Gas Prices Drops From July – But The Opposite Happens In Malaysia
June 30th, 2025 by financetwitter
Households in Singapore have reasons to smile from July to September due to lower energy and fuel costs – a drop in electricity and gas prices. Electricity bills will decrease by 0.65 cent per kilowatt-hour (kWh), while gas prices will fall by 0.44 cent per kWh. This comes after grid operator SP Group announced on June 30, 2025 that the electricity tariff for households will drop 2.3%.
Essentially, an average four-room Housing Board household may see a S$2.36 drop in its monthly electricity bill. Meanwhile, City Energy, the producer and retailer of piped gas, announced that the gas tariff will drop from 22.72 cents per kWh to 22.28 cents per kWh due to lower fuel costs, compared with the previous quarter.
SP Group and City Energy review their respective electricity and gas tariffs every quarter based on guidelines set by the electricity and gas industry regulator – Energy Market Authority. Each quarter, the energy cost component of the electricity tariff and the fuel cost component of the gas tariff use the average natural gas prices and the average fuel prices in the first 2½ months in the preceding quarter.
While the savings from the decreases in electricity and gas may be small, it nevertheless shows a caring government that transparently returns the benefits of lower commodities to consumers. But that’s not all. More than 950,000 Singaporean Housing Board households will receive rebates to their utility and conservancy bills in July, as part of a government scheme to help them with the cost of living.
Depending on their HDB flat type, eligible households will receive up to S$190 (RM627) in U-Save rebates for their utility bills, and a maximum of a month of rebates for their service and conservancy charges (S&CC). The rebates are disbursed every three months – in April, July, October and January – each year to help lower- and middle-income households cope with the increasing cost of living.
In total, eligible Singaporean HDB households will receive up to US$760 (RM2,510) in U-Save rebates for the financial year from April 2025 to March 2026. Meanwhile, eligible households can expect to receive a total of up to 3.5 months of S&CC rebates in the same period. To be eligible for the U-Save rebate, there must be at least one Singaporean owner or occupier in the household if the flat is partially rented or not rented out.
However, the opposite is happening in neighbouring Malaysia. In Peninsular Malaysia, the base electricity tariff is set to increase by 14.2% starting July 1, 2025, moving from 39.95 sen/kWh to 45.62 sen/kWh, according to Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Hilariously, the government of Anwar Ibrahim argued that the hike is necessary to reflect the higher fuel costs.
Even though Malaysia’s base electricity tariff now exceeds that of Vietnam and Indonesia, the Anwar administration still argues the need to rationalise subsidies due to fiscal constraints. Likewise, Tenaga, the utility giant that operates and monopolizes the power grid in the country, pointed to higher fuel costs assumption – coal and gas – as the main reason for the increment.
However, Tenaga as well as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the Finance Minister, cannot explain why Malaysian consumers always suffer endless higher electricity tariffs, but Singaporean consumers get to enjoy a lower rate. While PM Anwar has said the tariff adjustment is not expected to affect 85% of households, which reportedly consume 20% of the electricity supply, the chain reaction is another story.
Regardless of size, businesses affected by the increase in electricity hikes are set to pass down the cost of doing business to consumers. Mr Anwar tried – and failed – to reassure the business community on February 3 that the electricity price increase would not be 14%. He said a “small increase” was necessary to generate additional revenue for the government to fund public utilities.
Worse, he tried to hoodwink the people that his government needed to increase revenue by imposing higher tariffs so that he could improve education quality. He also insulted the people’s intelligence with an excuse that the electricity tariff hike would apply only to the industrial sector and the wealthy, pretending that the extra costs would not be passed down to poor consumers.
But not all business leaders appear to be convinced. Speaking to the audience before Mr Anwar at a Chinese New Year celebration on Feb 3, the president of the Associated Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia (ACCCIM), Mr Ng Yih Pyng, urged that economic and subsidy reforms be implemented gradually, to avoid disrupting markets and businesses.
“Given the accumulation of additional operating costs, we sincerely urge the government to maintain electricity tariffs at current levels throughout 2025-2026, to ease the financial burden on businesses and mitigate inflationary pressures from increased operating costs,” – said Mr Ng, who represents the ACCCIM’s 110,000 members.
Representing more than 4,000 manufacturing and industrial companies, FMM (Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers) president Soh Thian Lai similarly complained that the government should maintain the current electricity tariff as the sector faces other challenges such as a service tax hike for logistics, additional costs for e-invoicing, and the upcoming EPF contributions for foreign workers.
The latest electricity hike isn’t the first daylight robbery though. In December 2024, after getting the nod from the government, Tenaga Nasional announced that the base tariff will be raised from 39.95 sen per kWh in the 2022 to 2024 period, to 45.62 sen per kWh in the 2025 to 2027 period, from July 1, 2025. In fact, the base tariff has been steadily increasing from 38.53 sen per kwh in the 2015 to 2017 period.
The best part is Tenaga Nasional Berhad’s net profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2025 (1QFY2025) rose nearly 48% to RM1.1 billion from RM715.7 million a year earlier. Revenue for the quarter grew 17.6% to RM16 billion from RM13.64 billion last year, driven by a 17.5% increase in electricity sales – attributed to regulatory adjustments under the incentive-based regulation framework.
In Financial Year 2024, Tenaga’s total net profit surged nearly 70% to RM4.69 billion – its highest since Financial year 2018, boosted by gains in foreign exchange translation and higher electricity sales, not to mention higher tariff rates. Total revenue increased by 6.9% to RM56.74 billion. Of course, “Robin Hood” Anwar tried to hide this fact as he can’t explain why the people must pay more so that Tenaga can profits more.
