ECPA Public-Private Sector Dialogues

Friday, August 28, 2020

Virtual Meetings, September – November 2020

1. IntroductionThe Fourth Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) Ministerial Meeting was held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, on February 27-28, 2020. Delegations from 29 nations in the Western Hemisphere, government agencies, private companies, international financial institutions, and international organizations gathered to discuss the region’s energy investment and resilience agenda.

   The Americas Business Dialogue (ABD) helped to facilitate several activities to promote public-private engagement. The culmination of these activities was a plenary session between heads of delegations and CEOs of energy companies doing business in Latin America and the Caribbean.

   For the first time in the series of ECPA ministerial meetings, the gathering included a plenary session with representatives of the private sector who talked to ministers about how governments can lay a strong foundation for investment and innovation in energy. Private sector exchanges with country heads of delegations focused on three main topics: New Regulatory Frameworks for Grid Flexibility, Role of Natural Gas in the Latin American and Caribbean Energy Transition, and Regional Integration and Interconnection. Jamaica’s Minister of Energy, Science and Technology, Fayval Williams, who chaired the session, called the dialogue with the private sector “engaging.”

2. Public-Private Sector DialoguesIn keeping with the energy policy recommendations presented by ABD to the ministers of energy and heads of delegation at the Fourth ECPA Ministerial held in Montego Bay, ECPA and ABD will convene a series of virtual public-private sector dialogues focused on grid flexibility, natural gas, and integration. The dialogues will draw from the three white papers on these topics prepared by the ABD for the Fourth ECPA Ministerial. The public-private sector dialogues will also be consistent with the recommendations submitted by the ABD to the Heads of State at the Summit of the Americas held in Lima in April 2018 and the ABD recommendations to address COVID-19. Further, the proceedings will provide inputs to the next Summit of the Americas to convene in the United States in 2021.
3. Format

   Each of the three topics –grid flexibility, natural gas, and integration– will be the object of three 75-minute virtual dialogues to be conducted from September through November 2020. During each month, one topic will be developed, with one virtual meeting being held per week on the same day and time, to allow in-depth engagement while acknowledging the limitations of the virtual format. Each session of the virtual dialogues will include a brief presentation by experts to frame the conversation, a presentation from ABD members about private sector views on the issue and a moderated conversation between companies and government officials. The focus shall be placed on concrete actions that government may adopt on each of the topics to advance the implementation of private sector recommendations.

Tentative Session Format

As the engagement is expected to take place at the technical level, governments will be represented at the Secretary level or below, with submission of conclusions to be disseminated to Ministers and Vice-Ministers at the end of the process.

As necessary and relevant, regulators, system operators, utilities, system planners, independent system operators and experts from other institutions –including ECLAC, OLADE, Comisión de Integración Energética Regional and PARLATINO– may be invited to participate or speak at the virtual dialogues.

The virtual dialogues will address specific issues of regional relevance with regard to each topic. ​The annexes to this document describe in more detail each of the meetings.