Purpose of Partnership:
Efficiency gains in the generation, delivery, and use of energy have a direct and immediate impact on people's lives, and on economic productivity. For example, assuming the relatively low cost of $.01 per kilowatt-hour (kWH), a 10% gain in efficiency in developing countries would result in $15 billion in energy savings every year. Efficiency gains also yield environmental and health benefits by significantly reducing greenhouse gas and other emissions. Improvements in the generation and delivery of energy raise the reliability of existing capacity, relieve pressure on both natural resources and fuel imports, and slow the need for expensive new generating capacity.

The Efficient Energy for Sustainable Development Partnership (EESD), a component part of the U.S. Clean Energy Initiative launched at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, aims to improve the productivity and efficiency of energy systems, while reducing waste and pollution, saving money and improving reliability through more energy efficient processes and technologies, and production modernization. This public-private partnership, which is led by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), seeks to assist developing and transitional economies reduce poverty and get ahead of their development curves.

Partners:
To date, more than 80 organizations have committed to the objectives of the Efficient Energy for Sustainable Development Partnership: Partners include 30% from business and industry, 21% from NGOs and academia, 20% financial institutions, 20% from bilateral and country governments, and 8% multilateral organizations.

Partners commit to improve energy efficiency and reduce poverty; develop new business and financing models for sustainable development; promote integrated development by optimizing globalizing forces (technology, information and capital) for economic growth, social development and environmental progress; and form new alliances to facilitate project and market development.

Partnership Targets for 2012:

• Projects to increase energy efficiency 10% or more in 20 countries;

Through bilateral and multilateral efforts, combine policies and incentives to shift the market towards energy efficient products and services and build capacity to adopt cleaner, more efficient technologies:

• Promoting Public Sector Leadership by Example: Save at least 20% of budget overhead costs from improving public facilities in up to 10 countries; standards, labeling and testing programs in up to 20 countries;
• Building Local Commercial Infrastructure: Facilitate locally managed financial programs to attract affordable and long-term financing; Develop financial facilities that support upgrades to 10,000 schools, 5,000 medical facilities and 10,000 low income homes;
• Developing Sustainable Communities: Develop a global network of affiliated energy centers. Establish energy efficient building codes in up to 15 developing countries.

Increasing Energy Efficiency through Project Development:

• Cooperative agreements in India, Mexico and Guatemala to rehabilitate hydropower facilities have produced approximately 500MW of additional non-fossil generating capacity, enough power to serve approximately 700,000 people, and avoided more than 360,000 millions of tons of oil equivalent (mtoe) per year in fossil fuels. In addition, $500 million in new, near- term investment opportunities have been identified that include both new generating capacity and efficiency upgrades, and will include new transmission and distribution capacity.
• Replicable pilots at eight plants in India improved operating efficiency of and reduced emissions from existing coal-fired power plants. Results showed efficiency gains in generating capacity of 2-5% in each plant, yielding approximately 72 MW in additional generating capacity while reducing coal use in each plant by approximately 81,000 tons per year valued at $2.4 million with CO2 emissions reductions of 100,000 tons per year per plant. With 130 similar plants in India, ongoing improvements could generate close to 900 MW in new generating capacity along with significant reductions in fuel use and CO2 emissions without building any new plants.

Public Sector Leadership by Example:

• "Promoting an Energy Efficient Public Sector." Through this program, energy audits to identify potential energy savings are conducted in federal buildings and facilities within host countries such as Mexico and India. In Mexico, more than 1,000 preliminary audits of federal buildings and PEMEX oil company facilities have been completed by the Mexican Center for Energy Efficiency, CONAE, purchasing guidelines now reflect the intensity of energy use, and upgrades identified for investment are being considered by the Mexican Government.
• Facilitating technical assistance and training on best practices: This is done regarding standards, labeling and testing programs (S&L); energy audits; and government energy management plans in rapidly industrializing countries, such as India, China, Brazil, Philippines and Mexico;
• Advancing regional S&L harmonization and public sector energy use benchmarking and purchasing programs through APEC and the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) in Asia and North America. Through APEC's Energy Working Group, CLASP has set up an Energy Standards Information System interactive database, APEC-ESIS, to track and update information on energy-efficiency performance standards.

Building Local Commercial Infrastructure for Self-Sustaining Financing:

• In Mexico, Philippines and Poland, developing financing structures that use Special Entities to create deal flow through aggregating projects and pooling public and private resources to better mobilize capital for pipelines of public sector energy savings projects, turning savings into assets for increased "cash flow-based" investment. Estimated efficiency gains range from 20 to 30%.

• APEC. A U.S.-led nine economy Financing Task Force is undertaking 6 projects through APEC's Energy Working Group to build local capacity within the region to raise capital cost-effectively for smaller scale energy efficiency (EE) and renewable energy (RE) projects, starting with pilots in Mexico, Thailand and China. Projects promote best practices for financing EE and RE projects, develop market capacity to commercialize financing of these projects, train local banks, and increase information sharing to facilitate financing of public sector energy savings projects. A "Financing High Performance, Low Impact Buildings and Communities" initiative has been approved by the APEC Energy Ministers.

Developing Sustainable Cities and Communities:

• Global Energy Network (GEN). A global network of affiliated organizations is developing (3 affiliates in U.S., China and Israel, with discussions underway with entities in 10 other developed and developing countries) to accelerate the use of EE and RE technologies in community infrastructure projects; a model energy training program has been designed for community leaders and developers with tools for planning and designing integrated community energy and environmental systems; a pilot Model Energy System in Chula Vista, California will generate lessons learned that can be transferred to other countries.

Next Steps: Scale up best practices, innovative financing and sustainable community models by increasing synergies with international and regional networks and partnerships to:

• Build consensus through APEC, ASEAN and REEEP on best practices for financing EE and RE projects in support of a Financing Protocol; strengthen risk mitigation/credit enhancement products (loan guarantees and insurance); develop one or more revolving funds to underwrite project feasibility studies and upgrades to retrofit inefficient coal plants; replicate Special Purpose Entities to aggregate and standardize EE and RE transactions to create deal flow and mobilize capital from public and private lending sources.
• Contribute to agenda of the Marrakech International Task Force for Sustainable Products and the Asia Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate based on APEC and SPP harmonization and benchmarking activities;
• Establish, in partnership with REEEP, ICLEI, Mega-Cities and others, an open network for production of models and tools for energy smart community planning and development;
• Establish an APEC region-wide network of municipalities to foster energy-efficient regional and metropolitan planning and management through information exchange and development of public-private partnerships, business models and supportive policies and incentives.

Resources:

Since 2003, the U.S. Government has committed approximately $3.6 million to EESD activities and these funds leveraged approximately $12 million in financial and in-kind support from partners and other sources.

USG Point of Contact: U.S. Department of Energy: Larisa Dobriansky (Phone: 01 202 586-1524; E-mail: larisa.dobriansky@hq.doe.gov)

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