ECPA Energy Efficiency Working Group

Participating Countries

All countries of the Western Hemisphere per voluntary addition.

Partners

See ECPA partners here.

Financing

U.S. State Department

Context

In April 2010, the United States Government, with the participation of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, hosted the first ECPA Ministerial. Advancing ECPA, they invited other governments from the Western Hemisphere to highlight progress, announce new partnerships and facilitate the development of new initiatives among governments, institutions, private industry, and civil society. On this occasion, the Government of Mexico expressed interest in leading an Energy Efficiency Working Group. To implement this effort, in September 2010, Mexico hosted the Energy Efficiency and Access Forum. In April 2011, Mexico reaffirmed its interest in leading ECPA’s energy efficiency pillar at the Regional Critical Energy and Climate Issues Dialogue and ECPA Meeting in Panama City. The General Secretariat of the Organization of American States, under the leadership and guidance of the Secretariat of Energy (SENER) and the technical support of the National Commission for the Efficient Use of Energy (CONUEE), promotes cooperation activities hosted in Mexico or in other countries of the region with national and regional participants.

Objective

To provide on-demand policy, regulatory, and technical collaboration and support in the advancement of energy efficiency and conservation frameworks, projects, and public information campaigns to the governments of the Western Hemisphere. Likewise, to establish institutional links and coordination mechanisms with other ECPA energy efficiency activities.

Description

The Energy Efficiency Working Group supports the efforts of the governments of the Americas to promote energy efficiency. Under Mexico’s leadership, the Working Group provides information and tools to countries in the region to promote energy efficiency and conservation in the following programmatic areas:

  • Policy and regulatory frameworks
  • Equipment certification
  • Best practices at the local, state and national levels
  • Program design and implementation
  • Capacity building and institutional strengthening
  • Standards and labels
  • Energy Service Companies (ESCO) business model
  • Public awareness
  • Information on sources of finance for energy efficiency and conservation, including multilateral development banks, private sector and others.

Outcomes

Over 42-month of project implementation, the Energy Efficiency Working Group, under the technical guidance of the Government of Mexico and financial support of the U.S. State Department, was able to identify concrete energy efficiency recommendations in four countries and convened 21 activities that bridge energy efficiency and affordable energy systems among at least 30 OAS member States through:

  1. Nine Workshops, held one in Mexico, five in South America (Bolivia, 2 in Chile, and 2 in Peru) and three in the Caribbean (Barbados and 2 in Saint Lucia). All these workshops aimed at advancing energy efficiency and enabling linkages between governments, business developers, academia and financers.
  2. Six Technical Exchange Missions, Chile, Ecuador Mexico and the United States ascertain their willingness to contribute their expertise among those countries that requested technical assistance to the ECPA Energy Efficiency Working Group. Those beneficiary countries were Bolivia, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.
  3. Six Cooperation Seminars, held one in Mexico, one Chile, two in Central America (Guatemala and Honduras) and two in the Caribbean (Antigua and Barbuda, and Haiti). These seminars convey expertise mainly among universities and technical vocational colleagues to boost research, development and innovation in energy efficiency.
  4. Facilitate Coordination and Technical Support, the OAS/DSD, and the Government of Mexico engaged with partner agencies to leverage funding and joint implementation to advance and sustained progress towards energy efficiency projects and programs throughout OAS Member States. Chile, Dominican Republic, Guatemala and Honduras were pilot countries selected to identify energy efficiency and conservation recommendations. Although each nation implements its energy efficiency program to adjust to its own situation and priorities, there are tremendous opportunities for energy costs savings through horizontal cooperation among Latin America and Caribbean countries. The ECPA EEWG has worked to facilitate this type of collaboration, and set a consensus-based path.

ECPA Energy Efficiency Working Group Final Report – Executive Report (both available only in Spanish)

Click here to learn more about the initiatives.

Meetings and Conferences

Links of Interest

Contact

Carolina Peña

Email: [email protected]