Electric bills...

The higher up you are, the colder it gets. Houses that are really high up in the mountains do have fire places, something you won't find down in the valley.

If you can find a house that's in the mountains and is in a shady place you won't need A/C at all. We lived in a rented house that was next to a huge boulder and from 11 AM we had no sun.I never used  the A/C. Where we live now, at about 1000 feet we don't even have A/C installed. It can get kind of warm in August, September but we manage with a couple of fans.

Get a shady place high up and you'll be comfy without A/C.

Solar panels shouldn't be a lot more expensive than in the mainland.There a re some companies selling and installing solar panel electric systems but it's not really popular (yet?). I guess that people who don't have a lot of money can't afford it and people who can afford it don't care.

Electricity costs 29 cents per kilowatt hour, very expensive, only state that tops that is Hawaii at 33 cents. Doesn't matter where you live, that's the cost. If you can guestimate watt/hours you'll use then you can get a rough idea of the cost of electricity. For example a 100 watt light bulb on for 10 hours uses 100x10 or 1 kilowatt hour which would cost 29 cents. Although I don't know how much solar panels cost they would be appealing and would not be subject to electrical outages here. People tell me that electricity is the largest of their home expenses (I don't pay for electricity my land lord does). By the way, off topic, the cost of food can be significantly more than in the states, it's rather shocking how much I spend on groceries.

I heard solar packages were generally $25,000, which not coincidently was the amount of a PR government subsidy. Installations had a "season" before the subsidies ran out. I'm not sure the subsidies are still available -- the best way to find out would be to talk to an installer. I did try to find out if the utility would buy back excess, but saw nothing on the website. My guess is not.

HI Victor -  your food cost statement was just what my husband and i were discussing in addition to electric costs.   When we were there last month I bought some grapes from a local market in Aguada and was pretty blown away by the cost of a handful of grapes.  We figured we will need to learn what local fruits are grown on the island - other than those sweet bananas and do a swap for our favorite grapes!

Depending on the size home we end up with, we are going to look into solar panels as soon as we can afford to. It might be worth the cost/benefit once we understand how the government handles subsidies and buy back.  More research to do on this front.   Thank you all for your feedback.

same cost

boriloco wrote:

same cost

For what? Where?

Electric bills are no big thing if you do not waste power.  You don't need to heat and many places never need air conditioning.  If you cook with electric, run fans, use lights, normal things, you can very easily expect monthly bills never to top $40.
Electric per se is not expensive here.  It is the little add on charges that makes it seem so.  Water is also relatively cheap if not abused.  There were slight household rate increases to about $13 a month (total including increase).  Same for sewer (if you have it).
Food and gasoline are no more expensive than much of anywhere in the US.  Shop right at big supermarkets like Econo and the prices can be cheaper.  A few items like milk and imported vegetables can be more, but I eat as cheaply here as anywhere I have lived.

I presume by saying electricity is not expensive here you mean the monthly charge is not expensive if one doesn't waste power. However the cost of electricity per kilowatt/hour is expensive compared to every state except Hawaii. To compare:
Puerto Rico: $.29
New Jersey: $.1533
Michigan: $.1104
Kentucky: $.96
Texas: $.1168
Utah: $.101
California: $.168
Alaska: $.1833
Hawaii: $.3724
Average for all states: $.1209

So to calculate how much one would pay for electricity, identify appliances, lights, etc that consume electricity, determine total wattage per month, divide by 1000 and multiply by the desired cost per kilowatt hour. So if I burn a 100 watt bulb 100 hours a week then the cost per month (assuming 4 weeks a month to make it simpler) will be ((100x100x4)/1000))x.29 or $11.60.

Yes, if one uses a single 15 watt energy saving light bulb, eat only raw vegetables that need no refrigeration, one's electric bills will be no big deal.

In addition to what your Electric bill should cost based solely on the facts and figures and the resulting math, one has to figure in some intangibles., like there is a good chance your meter is not functioning properly and it's registering considerably more power than you are actually using. If you strongly suspect that is the case, call the power company and request your meter be checked. Good luck. It won't get done. The electrical infrastructure (as well as the infrastructure for the other utilities) is held together by chewing gum and paper clips. Power outages are the norm. People learn to live with them and after awhile it just becomes part of your life. But why is it happening? Because the entire electrical system all over the island is junk and falling apart. That's why when saying that electricity in PR is so much per kilowatt hour, you can only use those numbers if the system is working properly. Some people luck out and get a good roll of the dice. Their power bill is reasonable and they have no complaints.

Yes, how the electric company arrives at one's consumption is not transparent. Nor the water bill. I've known people who after paying a the same amount for water for years are hit with a huge bill (1000's of dollars) with an explanation that they weren't charged the correct amount for those years. I am very lucky that electric and water are included in my rent. I'd hate to deal directly with the electric and water companies.

My experiences in dealing with both water and electricity companies are just fine.

The water company comes by to check the meters a couple of times per year and what we pay is reasonable (20-25 bucks/month).

Our electricity meter didn't work good and suddenly we got monthly invoices of 2, 3 thousand dollars. We went to the local office and talked to a representative who immediately took action to prevent technicians to cut us off.
A couple of days later somebody came and asked if he could look around in the house to see if we could have been using what the meter showed. He saw that there was nothing out of the ordinary, no A/C units ore other power hungry devices.
Later that week a technician came and exchanged the meter. The bills went back to normal.

As for power outages, yes that's happening a lot. Most people around here have a gen-set and UPSs for the computer(s).

The main problem seems to be that there's not enough maintenance. The vegetation is growing 365 days per year and many lines are covered in ivy, go through trees etc. When there's an outage the linesmen always show up at the end of the day, maybe because they are doing maintenance in the day time and only work on outages in overtime.
They try to find the problem and cut some branches and connect the power again.

EDIT. Yes, electricity is expensive here, no doubt about that, but there's nothing one can do about it other than trying to limit electricity usage.