Resumo:
The electricity distribution sector in Brazil has the characteristic of a natural monopoly and
needs economic regulation. The mechanism adopted for tariff regulation is the Periodic Tariff
Review (RTP), carried out by the National Regulatory Agency. Currently, the efficiency
analysis method applied at RTP is the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), already used by
other countries in the evaluation of efficiency in energy utilities. Utilities classified as
inefficient by the DEA must direct their efforts to win efficiency by looking at practices from
the utilities classified by efficient by the DEA. This study proposes an efficiency analysis
focused on improving the current methodology at RTP and suggests tools that may be useful in
providing strategies to improve efficiency. The analyzes presented here focus on two levels:
sectorial and corporate. At the sectorial level, an efficiency analysis is proposed, in which each
utility is considered as a Decision-Making Unit (DMU) in the DEA and compared with each
other. This efficiency analysis between utilities delimited the database defined by the regulator.
The study also applies the concept of 'clustering' the set of DMUs by the k-means method,
showing the effect that a reduction of DMUs` set causes in the efficiency analysis. Finally, the
impact of DEA efficiency is measured quantitatively on the utilities' regulatory operating costs
(COR). At the corporate level, an innovative internal benchmarking is proposed, named here
self-efficiency analysis. This analysis splits the utility into smaller parts (regional), and these
parts are considered the DMUs in the DEA. The idea of splitting the concession area into
smaller areas is to incorporate the effect of environmental characteristics (such as lightning
incidence and vegetation height) in the efficiency analysis. The thesis presents a case study for
a utility in São Paulo. The self-efficiency analysis, therefore, defines efficiency gain strategy
by indicating the most inefficient areas inside the utility. The study also applies two other
benchmarking techniques, the Cross-efficiency Analysis and the Ratio-based Efficiency
Analysis. The CEA and REA studies bring new efficiency indicators for efficiency analysis
between utilities and self-efficiency analysis.
