Singapore's power demand falls 3 pct in October

Singapore's power demand in October fell by 3 percent year on year, reflecting a slowdown in economic activities, local daily Business Times reported on Wednesday.While the statistics were not yet available from the Energy Market Company, which operates the wholesale electricity market, the newspaper cited power generation company officials as saying that the slowing trend started in August."Our numbers show negative electricity demand growth of 2.5 to 2.8 percent year on year for Singapore last month, which was the first time this year," said John Ng, chief executive of PowerSeraya."While it is too early to confirm, November will also likely see negative year on year growth," he added.Tuas Power, another power generator, also said the company's October data suggested a drop of 3 percent in electricity demand compared with the same month last year, and a drop of 4 percent month on month.The slide reflected both a slowdown in the economy and the cooler weather of the past few months in Singapore, a tropical city state that uses quite some electricity for air conditioning, said the company's president and chief executive officer Lim Kong Puay.The data available from the Energy Market Company showed that the electricity demand dipped from 5,248 megawatts in July to 5, 131 megawatts in August.Singapore reported a decline of 16.2 percent in non-oil domestic exports in October and the government and analysts have said they expected the economy to slow down on weak external demand amid the uncertainties in the developed markets.