I had a meeting today and one of the guys is a builder with a big house on the lagoon. This is more applicable if you own your own place but could make sense if you rent and have a long term plan or a landlord like Steve's who may pony up some $$. You can have multiple meters in residential properties and receive multiple bills. So if you are jumping out of the Tarifa 1C you could consider putting one or more extra meters for your air conditioning units. He also mentioned that phone chargers when the phone is not attached, computers when off but plugged in and certain other things like this, have a slow drain of electric. So it is better to unplug your computer and phone chargers when not in use. Maybe this will help a couple of you high rollers like Steve. jaja
Here in Mexico, they also unplug appliances when not in use (microwaves, toasters, blenders, etc). I'm not sure how much it saves, but Mexican roommates have gotten mad at me for not unplugging the microwave haha
I'd think most appliance unplugging is to protect them from surges more than to save money on the power bill... true many things still consume power even when off but the amounts you're talking about (for properly working things) should be minuscule... the multiple meters approach is good IF you can get CFE to play along. I know people that have been waiting for YEARS to get 220 in their houses or second meters for apartments they rent... and I've known others who get same-day-service.. so its luck of the draw when dealing with them.
Anything plugged into an outlet drains electricity even if not turned on. This is true everywhere. Best way to avoid draining electricity is to totally unplug everything from all the outlets in the wall when not there for extended periods of time (even a week). This will reduce your electric bill quite a bit. However practically its a pain to do and that is why many of us do not do it.
Everybody's heard about big electric bills here, and some have experienced them. Others, like a recent visitor to Cancun, who was thinking about living here, may have been scared away by a real estate agent who told them they could expect $500 USD/month electric bills. (This must be a popular number, as we were just told the same thing by another real estate agent!) However, we've lived here for a year and a half and our biggest electric bill has been 1,300 pesos- for a two month period, through the hottest summer months. This is something like $55 USD/month, and we run a minisplit all but two hours a day at this time of year. The reason our bill is so low is that the Mexican Government pays two-thirds of our bill for us: the $55 figure just represents the part they don't pay, plus tax on that sum. We get that subsidy because we are using modest amounts of electricity (about 500 KWH of electricity/month, right now), and they reward efforts to conserve. We would lose that subsidy if we ran an annual average above 850 KWH/month, but we don't- far from it, in fact. In the cooler months of the year our electric bills drop to around $15 USD/month- again, with a heavy subsidy from the Mexican Government. So, electricity costs need not be a big factor to anyone thinking of living here: just a little effort to conserve can keep those bills very low. Now, if we can just cut our restaurant tabs, we'll have it made! (However, my wife reminded me recently, that our latest meal out- which was very pleasant, by the way- cost just half what it would have been in the states.)
I'm shocked to see such high bills for you guys (even yours seems a little high, V!) Anywhere I've lived since I moved here 5 years ago, I've never had a bill for more than $400 pesos... usually it sits around $250 pesos. And that's considering I've had a few roommates who used a lot of AC! (never had it myself, though) and I always sleep with the TV on! I've paid electric bills in the following areas: by Avenida La Luna (a little AC, about $300) in Porto Alegre (no AC, about $250 in Unidad Morelos (a little AC, about $150) in Tikal (tons of AC, about $60) Does CFE charge differently in certain neighborhoods? Even between my previous apartments/houses, you can see a pretty big difference.
Well without putting too fine of a point on it.. if you're using AC more than just an hour a day and your bill is ridiculously low.. something funny is going on. It's no secret that A LOT of people here steal power.. and it's entirely possible that you could move into a place where certain big ticket items (like AC's) have been wired to bypass the meter by a previous resident. In fact the place I currently live at received $0.00 peso bills from CFE for months until they came to check it out, replaced the meter and gave me an estimated bill to pay. I've also been in many houses that are kept like ice boxes and you just know that they are stealing power as they could never afford to pay the bills that would accompany such heavy AC usage. Also, V.. I'm sure you're smart enough to know that the government isn't "paying" any of your bill.. they're just not charging you the highest rate.. the "costo de produccion" is crap... just do the math.. if it really costs them that much to make the power (over 3 pesos per KW) it would be more economical for everyone to run little gasoline generators! My cheapo generator can run for around 6-8 hours on a gallon and produce a little over 1.5KW per hour... which works out to around the same as what the CFE bills claim it costs them to produce the same amount in their much more efficient plants.. so I really doubt the figures.. and think it has more to do with making the "people" think the government is doing something to help them more than anything... (ie: propaganda) then again if they factor in all of the money being stolen at various levels in the CFE the costs might be accurate... and yes I realize the infrastructure costs are there too.. but I'm still doubtful... employees here make only a fraction of the salaries US counterparts make, the equipment is older, cheaper, and more sparse, and the rates are still higher than most parts of the US so.... I don't buy it.
Can´t speak about others´situations, Life, but we´ve lived in three different apartments here, each of which had similar equipment (12-17,000 BTU acs in each room), and our usage has been consistent from one place to the next, so I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the readings we´ve had, especially when I look at the prior usage by others living in the same apartments, as shown on CFE´s bills, and it´s often been much higher. Last summer, we had to move out of a place which had been rented, short term, for one of the months we had wanted it: when we returned, we saw that the occupants had used an average of 37 KWH per day to our 17-20 KWH per day, in summer, again suggesting the meters were working and reading the actual consumption. (The greatest difference we´ve seen so far has been in our current place, where the previous tenanats had consumed 3,200 KWH in the Oct-Nov period, last year.) As for the point about the "subsidies", I agree with you that how it is conceived can be a matter of semantics, but the result is to reward those who conserve with much lower electric bills. It works out nicely for us, while still enjoying ac most of the day. I consider that the subsidy is actually coming from large consumers, who must pay a premium rate for their electricity.
The bills are indeed bewildering here sometimes.. I still think anyone using AC and getting $400 peso and lower bills has something going on unless there is some super low tariff class that I haven't heard of. If you're ideally place to avoid most of the solar heat and keep the AC temp high so its not running constantly, as you've said is your situation V, that certainly makes a difference and that's probably why you have managed to stay relatively low on usage. For reference my friend's house in Puerto Morelos, which has sat empty most of this past year with only 1 mini split AC running on low cool (to control the moisture) and florescent outside lights at night, normally has bills in excess of $3,000 and that's EMPTY.. when there are guests there using all 6 mini splits and the jacuzzi tubs you're looking at 4 to 6 times that amount easily depending how wasteful they are (and tourist tend to be VERY wasteful). Meanwhile a house next to me with 4 full time residents but no AC's has bills of less than $400 most of the year... so it seems pretty clear.. if you want AC you'll pay for it. (unless you're stealing)
Yikes! What does he think will happen if he doesn´t take this very costly route to deal with moisture in the house? Surely there are some alternatives, such as whatever was done before a/c was invented, like putting a vent in the attic or something. Puerto Morelos is probably in tariff class 1-B, in which you get cast into the fires of DAC when your annual monthly average exceeds the rather low figure of 400 KWH, just as we would, if we ran one minisplit 24 hours per day (we are currently exceeding that modest allowance, for example, but we're not in tariff class 1-B, in Cancun, and our allowance is 850 KWH/month). Yeah for Cancun, huh?!
