How Much Does Electricity Cost at Lake Chapala-Ajijic ?

Today I want to explain a little about how the CFE’s or Comision Federal de Electricidad(government owned electric company) rate structure works.

Electricity is measured here like in the rest of North America in Kilowatt hours (1 kilowatt is equal to the amount of energy it takes to run a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours 10 hours x 100 watts = 1000 watts or 1 kilowatt.

In Mexico the more energy you use the more per kilowatt you pay ( a good way to encourage conservation).

The CFE determines our electric bills here using a series of 8 tables. They look at your overall consumption of kilowatts over a six month usage period and assign you to one of the tariff tables.

If you want to see the tables just go to http://www.cfe.gob.mx./es/InformacionA1Client/conocetutarifa/ and browse from there.

CFE bills its customers every 2 months and even if you don’t get your bill you should go to the CFE office that serves your area and pay your bill as they are very strict about turning off service if not paid within a short time frame after the bill is due… and there’s a reconnect fee if applicable.

Since we don’t use electricity here to heat or cool our homes our electric bills are quite reasonable by North American standards. I pay approximately $35 USD a month on average and we are probably in one of the upper tariff tables since our two TV’s and three computers are on most of the time.