Is the electricity reliable in Yucatan: Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Merida, etc? Are there blackouts or brownouts in Yucatan: Riviera Maya, Playa del Carmen, Cancun, Merida, etc?

I am from Florida, where we are used to a lot tropical storms and a lot of power outages, not on a daily basis like it was 20 or 30 years ago, but still on a pretty regular basis.

 

The reliability of the electricity in Yucatan was extremely surprising to me. My reference point is Merida and the beaches. The electricity at the beaches here is much more reliable than I ever expected. We do get brownouts and sometimes we get power surges, which is typical in a...

I am from Florida, where we are used to a lot tropical storms and a lot of power outages, not on a daily basis like it was 20 or 30 years ago, but still on a pretty regular basis.

 

The reliability of the electricity in Yucatan was extremely surprising to me. My reference point is Merida and the beaches. The electricity at the beaches here is much more reliable than I ever expected. We do get brownouts and sometimes we get power surges, which is typical in a lot of areas in Mexico, so you do things to protect yourself such as using surge protectors. The beach areas were recently upgraded from aluminum to copper cables with a larger CFB, which is the local government electric station. It’s incredible and it’s far better than I ever expected. 

 

We don’t generally have blackouts here in the Yucatan. It is usually around storms that you only get problems with brownouts. If you take the storms away, we would probably have 99% very good electrical supply here.  

 

(Restored Colonial with new plumbing and plumbing in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, pictured.)

Blackouts do not happen anymore here in the beach areas next to Merida. When I first moved here, 13 years ago, blackouts occasionally happened but that has been fixed. 

 

They are always working on the infrastructure here including electricity, the roads, etc. Occasionally, there may be blackouts for 30 minutes to an hour while they are making some kind of repair but that happens only about once every couple of months. Other than that, blackouts are not...

Blackouts do not happen anymore here in the beach areas next to Merida. When I first moved here, 13 years ago, blackouts occasionally happened but that has been fixed. 

 

They are always working on the infrastructure here including electricity, the roads, etc. Occasionally, there may be blackouts for 30 minutes to an hour while they are making some kind of repair but that happens only about once every couple of months. Other than that, blackouts are not a problem at all.  

 

(CT Merida II, thermal electrical plant, Merida, Mexico, pictured.)

In our house in Celestún, we have ten air-conditioners. (Celestún is a village of about 7,500 people in the state of Yucatan in the Yucatan Peninsula.)  I have a double electric wall oven, a microwave oven, and everything else is electric-powered. I used to pay around US $400 a month for my 6,000 square-foot home. I switched over to solar power four years ago and I haven’t had an electric bill since. If you want to switch to solar, your power is free.

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In our house in Celestún, we have ten air-conditioners. (Celestún is a village of about 7,500 people in the state of Yucatan in the Yucatan Peninsula.)  I have a double electric wall oven, a microwave oven, and everything else is electric-powered. I used to pay around US $400 a month for my 6,000 square-foot home. I switched over to solar power four years ago and I haven’t had an electric bill since. If you want to switch to solar, your power is free.

 

However, the reliability of the power is a bit worse lately only because they were replacing a lot of the old electric posts, transformers, and lines but generally, it is very good. I have an 11,000-kilowatt generator that we use if the power goes out. It only take a minute and the electricity in our house is back on. Power outages are not really an issue if you plan for it. 

 

If you go to Cancun or to Merida, the reliability of electricity is very good; no problems whatsoever. (Merida is the largest city in the state of Yucatan in the Yucatan Peninsula and Cancun is part of the state of Quintana Roo in the Yucatan Peninsula, which contains Playa del Carmen and Tulum, generally referred to as the Riviera Maya.) The electric reliability in those places is about 98%.

 

Here in Mexico, if they need to fix something on the lines or the posts, the switch the power off. It’s not like in the US or Canada where they bypass everything, do the fix, and put the power up. Just recently, we had a power outage that lasted for 6 hours. The electric company announces the scheduled power outage. They tell everybody what they will be doing and for how long the power will be out so everybody is prepared for it.

 

My gasoline powered generator cost about $1,400,10 years ago. It’s very reasonable. You can get a 6,000 KVA generator now for about $750, which would run one refrigerator, air-conditioning, and all your other electrical appliances. 

 

(Solar panels on a home in Mexico, pictured.)