A Benchmarking Study of Island Electricity Companies: The Case of the Central Electricity Board of Mauritius

Abstract

In this paper, we study the performance of the electricity company of Mauritius, the Central Electricity Board (CEB). We undertake a comparative analysis with other island companies in similar environmental conditions. We mainly rely on data available on annual reports for the CEB and four other companies operating in islands: EAC (Cyprus), CEM (Macao), EEM (Madeira), and MEA (Isle of Man). The period under study covers the years 2000–2010 and uses the Malmquist Index and Data Envelopment Analysis. For the CEB, results show that productivity change is driven mainly by technical change. CEB operational costs grew during the study period due to the increasing price of fossil fuel used in the generation of electricity. Companies less dependent on thermal production were less exposed to increasing costs.