A STUDY ON THE PERCEPTION OF MILLENNIALS TOWARDS GREEN ELECTRICITY PLANS IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

Singapore has an aspiration to produce power that can meet the annual needs of approximately 350,000 households by 2030 with solar energy. This can be gradually fulfilled with the introduction of Green Electricity Plans (GEP) into Singapore’s Electricity Market. However, majority of the population in Singapore are unaware of such GEPs and the Willingness To Adopt (WTA) a GEP in Singapore is also unknown. This paper will seek to study the WTA of millennials towards GEPs, specifically students from ages 20-24, that are currently residing in a sustainability-focused university hostel. Electronic surveys were circulated to assess the students’ thoughts and opinions towards GEPs, with 83 eventual responses. Subsequently, multiple statistical tests, which include but are not limited to, ANOVA, Levene’s Test and Mann-Whitney U Test, would be carried out to ascertain five hypotheses. The findings suggest that having a sustainability mindset is an important factor that significantly affects the WTA in millennials, while other household factors such as electricity bill, housing type and household income will not significantly affect WTA, neither does gender. However, these results are only applicable towards millennials that practice sustainability behaviour. Most of the respondents would still be living with their parents if they did not reside in a hostel, and the bills are not paid by respondents themselves – thus, the WTA might be different if respondents were responsible for the finances.