Price, Bill, and Burden

When people say “electricity is expensive,” they may mean three different things. The first is the price: the money you pay for one unit. One unit of electricity is one kilowatt-hour (kWh).

The second is the bill: the total amount your family really pays each month. The bill depends on how many units you use, the rate for each step of use, a service fee, and tax.

The third is the burden: how much of your family’s income goes to the bill. Two families can pay the same price, but their burden can be very different.

Here is an example. The numbers are made up for practice. They are not official rates.

Mai lives with her parents and her grandmother in a small town in northern Thailand. In March, the family used 180 units of electricity, and the bill was 720 baht. In April, the weather was much hotter. Mai’s grandmother felt sick in the heat, so the family turned on an air conditioner every night. In April, they used 300 units, and the bill was 1,380 baht.

The family used about 67% more electricity, but the bill almost doubled. Why? In this example, the family pays step rates. After a certain number of units, each extra unit costs a little more. So the higher bill had two causes: the family used more units, and some of those units were in a more expensive step.

The April bill does not show that the family was careless. They used more electricity because someone in the family needed it.

Now look at two other homes. This is also a made-up example. Home A has 10,000 baht a month to spend. Home B has 30,000 baht. Each home spends 2,400 baht a month on energy: 1,000 baht for electricity, 1,200 baht for travel fuel, and 200 baht for cooking gas.

The bills are the same, but the burden is not. For Home A, energy takes 24% of its money. For Home B, it takes only 8%. We call this the share of income. After paying for energy, Home A has much less left for food, school, and medicine. It is harder for Home A to afford its energy, even though both homes pay the same amount.

You may see a chart online that compares countries. In one data set from March 1, 2026, the price for homes was about 0.118 US dollars per kWh in Thailand, 0.049 in Malaysia, and 0.206 in the Philippines.

These numbers tell us the price level. They do not tell us which families can pay their bills more easily. To know that, we also need to know people’s income and how much electricity they use.

Before you share a chart like this, ask a few questions. Are all the numbers from the same date? Do they use the same unit? Is each number a price per unit, a sample bill, or an average over many years? Does the chart show income too?