Mauritius Says 253 Home Solar Kits Were Offline, 191 With Inverter Faults

Mauritius's energy minister reported that 253 installations under the Central Electricity Board (CEB) Home Solar Project were not operating as of **25 August 2026**, including 191 cases involving faulty inverters, according to a 1 November account by Mauritian newspaper L'Express. The figures are attributed to Energy and Public Utilities Minister Patrick Assirvaden's response to a parliamentary question from opposition whip Joanna Bérenger; they are **not** a verified count of installations still offline in November.

The newspaper said 4,667 solar kits had been installed since the programme began and 193 installations were subsequently removed at beneficiaries' request. Those are different measures: installations historically completed, equipment removed, and equipment reported out of service on one date. The 191 inverter faults account for about three quarters of the 253 non-operational installations, but the full original parliamentary answer and a dated CEB repair ledger have not been independently obtained.

According to the minister's account, other reported causes included tripped electrical protection devices, surge-protection failures and damaged cables. Assirvaden said defective inverters had been sent to a contractor for replacement and the utility was taking corrective measures. That does not establish when each installation was repaired, whether the contractor breached a warranty, or that any public expenditure was lost.

The CEB's published renewable-energy scheme terms independently confirm that its Home Solar Project Phase 2B provides qualifying households with free rooftop equipment and that the utility bears investment, operation and maintenance costs under the published scheme. Participating households receive a monthly electricity-bill credit equivalent to 100 kWh for 20 years. Those programme terms provide context; they do not independently verify the minister's fault count or the status of older installations.

L'Express also reported the minister's explanation of an ownership-transfer programme involving approximately 1,000 households. Beneficiaries would assume basic tasks such as cleaning panels and promptly reporting faults, while remaining eligible to seek CEB assistance. A separate August report on an ownership-transfer ceremony confirms that the programme had begun; it does not establish the number of systems repaired.

The National Assembly lists parliamentary questions for 27 October 2026, but TFNOS has not retrieved the complete answer. The next verifiable test is the CEB's dated list of repairs and replacements, including warranty terms, service delays and how the utility measures restoration of service. No evidence reviewed establishes wrongdoing by a named supplier.