Contrast with Mexico, where the billing is so complicated that not one person in a thousand understands it.

It is a tiered system, where the more you use, the higher your cost per kilowatt hour. Sounds simple, so far, but…

Billing is bi-monthly (every two months, not twice a month). If, over that two months you use less than 100 kWh, you pay only the bi-monthly connection fee, which is $17.58, except that the last time I checked was two years ago, and they average about a half-percent per two-month billing cycle for inflation, so figure it is probably about $18.66 now. If you use less than 150 kWh in the two months, the connection fee is waived, and you pay about 6.56 cents per kWh, for a maximum of $9.78. This is the "Basico" rate. Yes, it costs you less for 149 kWh than it costs for 10 kWh, but nobody uses less than 100 kWh in a month so it is a moot point. Use up to 250 kWh in the two months, and you pay the Basico rate for the first 150 kWh, then jump to the "Intermedio" rate, currently about 7.94 cents per kWh, for the remainder. Use more than 250 kWh in the two months, and you go to the "Exceso" rate, which is 25.73 cents per kWh for the overage above 250. Yes, more than three times the Intermedio rate. But wait, there's more. Once you burn a single kWh at the Exceso rate, you go back to paying the connection fee as well. And, since you managed to escalate to Exceso, even if it were just a single kWh at that rate, your Intermedio rate for the kWhs from 150--249 gets bumped up by about 37% as well.

Still too simple? Well, we're not done yet. Should you use 3,000 or more kWh during the previous 12 months, then you go into the dreaded "DAC", or "Domestic Alto Consumo" category. In DAC, every kWh you use is billed at the Exceso rate, plus you pay the connection fee. You remain in DAC until your previous 12 months total is less than 3,000 kWh. If you have a swimming pool, you will never get out of DAC.

My next door neighbor pays about $900 per two-months for her electricity. I pay about $32 per two months. I manage my electrical usage very carefully (Basico rate plus just a smidgeon of Intermedio) and I don't have a swimming pool.

I wrote a fantastically complicated spreadsheet to take care of these variables, plus a whole bunch of other variables not mentioned here: number of meters, payment in dollars vs pesos, current exchange rate, use of the air conditioning, projected inflation rate, and whether or not solar panels are installed and if so how many, etc. In my situation, I could reduce my bi-monthly electric bill down to about $6.60 cents using solar panels, and they would amortize in just 52.2 years.

Unless you are in DAC, solar panels here are a non-starter.

tanstaafl.