RUNNING the air-conditioner to beat the heat over the next three months will cost $1.50 to $15.20 more a month.

Electricity prices here will go up by about 7 per cent from Wednesday, on the back of increasing fuel oil prices, said utilities services provider SP Ser-vices yesterday.

From next month, three-room households will pay about $4 more a month in power bills, and five-room households, about $6 more.

This is the first increase in electricity tariffs, which are revised every quarter, since the last quarter of last year.

For private tutor Sally Chew, 48, the increase will not mean much change in the household.

'After the huge hike last year, we started doing things differently to try to save electricity, so with this increase, we will just continue what we've been doing,' said Mrs Chew, who lives in a five-room HDB flat in Yishun with her husband, two children and mother-in-law.

The change in behaviour triggered by the 21 per cent hike last October - the highest one-time increase in seven years - included switching on just one air-conditioner at a time instead of two, she said.

From Wednesday, electricity will cost households about 19 cents per kwh, without the goods and services tax, up from the current 18 cents.

SP Services said the average fuel oil price over the last three months went up from $60.47 per barrel to $76.24 per barrel.

After going up 21 per cent in the last quarter of last year, electricity tariffs fell by 25 per cent in the first three months of this year.

Read the full story in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times