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Cost of Electricity in Mexico by Anthony Colleraine - the Net sanfelip.com.mx
Electricity Expense In Mexico Let me clarify the situation on electricity rates in San Felipe for this summer. Most residential users will find themselves on the 1F tarrif. If you use a total of less than 1200 kwh of electricity per month you get a bargain rate. Your maximum bill (including the 10% tax) will be 777 pesos or less. You can approximate what you will pay by using the figure of 0.65 pesos/kwh, so 900 kwh/month would cost you around 585 pesos.
Most people will find it difficult to stay under the 1200 kwh limit which is approximately 40 kwh/day. You may be able to achieve this by running only a single bedroom a/c unit plus your other household gadgets such as refrigerator, lighting and TV; though basic operations of these household necessities will likely consume around 15 kwh/day.
If your consumption exceeds the 1200 kwh/month limit, even by a single kilowatt-hour, you qualify for the "enhanced" rate. The calculation of this is more involved so to give you an approximate way of estimating your bill, I made an excel spreadsheet which plots your monthly consumption in kwh along the x-axis and gives the price you will pay in pesos on the y-axis. The graph below includes tax:
There is a breakpoint at 1200 kwh/month and another at 2500 kwh/month. At this latter point, you will be paying 2.6 pesos/kwh (including taxes) which is very expensive - around double what you might pay in most US cities.
Resources Limited in Mexico The lesson is that we all need to be very careful in our use of electricity. Even though you might be well-off and can afford to pay several hundred dollars a month, you should heed the fact that our resources are limited and we all need to cut down on our consumption. Take it as a challenge to see how low you can keep your electricity consumption this summer. When cool evenings occur, let in the fresh air. In the heat of the day keep the sunshine out of your rooms by closing the blinds. Better yet is to put external sunshades on your windows; if you look around town you will see that lots of families put aluminium foil wrap on the windows where the sun shines in to reflect away the intense heat. It may not be elegant but it is cheap and effective! (We even do this at The Net where we have to pay the crippling commercial electricity rates.) Consider cooking outdoors on the barbeque as much as you can - the heat and moisture generated by cooking on a gas stove is a major load on your air conditioner. If you have an electric stove and hot water heater you have even more reason to cut down on their use. Turn off your (electric or gas) hot water heater for the summer - the water in the tank will still be over 90 degrees F in the summer and it is ideal for showering and for the washing machine. (TC)
