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 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; and
- Information on sources of finance for energy efficiency and conservation, including multilateral development banks, private sector and others.
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. These cooperation activities contemplate regional capacity-building through workshops, exchange missions and exchange of information and experiences with other regional initiatives on energy efficiency. As part of its support toward ECPA, the Government of Mexico, through SENER and CONUEE, will host some of these activities with partners such as the ECPA energy innovation centers across the region. OAS and the Government of Mexico will also identify relevant private sector companies, NGOs or civil society groups, and/or other multilateral organizations and national research institutions (e.g., ECLAC, OLADE, universities) to share best practices on energy efficiency and conservation. Governments of the region interested in engaging with the ECPA Energy Efficiency Working Group will be consulted to ascertain which of programmatic areas are of interest to them in order to provide policy, regulatory, and technical assistance.
In addition to providing assistance, the Working Group will also invite Latin American and Caribbean countries with positive models and experience in these areas to also share best practices and experiences to develop regional partnerships that promote efficiency and conservation using the best practices available in this hemisphere.
Seminar on Innovation Science and Technology for an Energy Efficient Development in Central America