The Cost of Electricity

The Electric Bill Box

On of the reasons that I have decided to make my home in Thailand is the cost of living. Most things are much less expensive that back home; some are about the same and a few a much more.

But today I will write about the electricity bill, which arrived on Sunday. They have a neat system here. A guy drives up to your house on his motorcycle and never dismounts. Using some sort of hand held computer he enters the meter number, the current reading pushes enter and out pops the bill. This he places in a little plastic box, which is placed in the vicinity of the meter. Then off he drives. A much better system that taking the data back to some office, reentering in into some other system, printing and then mailing a bill. Especially with Thai mail, which sometime does not reach, it’s destination.

This month’s bill came to a total of 2007 baht or about $63.92 at the current exchange rate for 562 units. Which I assume are kilowatt-hours. That total also includes 518 baht ($16.50) of various taxes or fees.

I do try and conserve on energy use but I am far from a miser. There is usually a television and several fan going continually. As well as two refrigerators, an electric hob for cooking, hot water heater, lights and the big draw air conditioning. This I run for about three hours daily from 12:00-15:00 which is the hottest part of the day and nightly from 22:00 until 5:30 in the morning.

A funny things, after you live here awhile, things seem expensive when you think of the cost in baht, but not so expensive when you think in dollars.