Soaring crude oil prices drove the benchmark market price of electricity to a record last month and there is not much relief in sight.

That means the pain for consumers will go on for the next two quarters - just when the hotter weather sends power usage through the roof.

The wholesale price is what the power companies pay for electricity, plus a small amount of administrative costs.

And it directly affects how much consumers end up forking out.

Singapore Power Services (SPS), which supplies electricity to about 1.2 million households, has increased tariffs by an average 5.7 per cent from April to June 30.

But that is far below the rise in the average or market price, known in the industry as the Uniform Singapore Energy Price (USEP).

This jumped 17.7 per cent from March to reach $173 megawatts per hour in April.

That's the highest monthly average since 2003, when wholesale market trading began, and well up on the last high of $168.34/MW hour in August 2006.

Overall, average energy prices have risen by nearly 35 per cent in four years.

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