With year-round sunshine and rising electricity rates, more and more people in Jalisco are turning to solar energy.
Jalisco is home to more solar panels than any other Mexican state, and the majority of these are found in the expat community at Lakeside.
The Lake Chapala area has become known as the “solar capital of Mexico,” says Jsun Mills, a Californian who founded eSun Energy in Ajijic around five years ago. eSun has another office in Guadalajara and in January opened a third outlet in Puerto Vallarta to tend to clients on the coast from Colima up to Nayarit.
“Most clients are members of the expat community but we are doing a lot of projects with Mexican nationals as well,” he says, adding that they install most solar panels in homes, “because that’s where the best economic returns are.”
Installation costs depend on geography, Mills explains, with houses on the coast typically using much more electricity (mostly on air conditioning) and requiring more panels than those inland.
