In November 2020, U4E was pleased to host a dedicated energy efficiency regulations session at this year’s Energy Week organized by OLADE (Latin American Energy Organisation), held virtually for the first time, and with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The energy efficiency regulations session focussed on the factors that must be considered when developing or updating regulations and energy efficiency labelling, and when undertaking market surveillance and compliance activities. Concrete examples from the region were provided by Chile and Costa Rica, based on the steps that they have taken to regulate energy efficiency, and by CARICOM (Caribbean Community), based on their experience in regional harmonization in the Caribbean countries. This was complemented by the European Union experience developing their new labelling which comes into force in 2021.
The U4E Model Regulation Guidelines were also presented as a possible starting point for developing regulatory policies, providing a balance between ambitious levels of energy efficiency while limiting adverse cost impacts to the final user and product availability.
Against this background, the panel discussions went on to explore the questions of whether it is possible to achieve the harmonization of energy efficiency standards and labelling at the regional level in Latin America and the Caribbean and how such a regional energy efficiency harmonization project could be financed.
More information about the Energy Week is available on the OLADE Energy Week website, including recordings of all the sessions. As with all the sessions, the energy efficiency session recording is in Spanish. For those particularly interested in the information on the U4E Model Regulation Guidelines, this discussion begins 1h16mins into the recording.
For more information on U4E’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean, contact Roberto Borjabad at roberto.borjabad@un.org.