The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved a project to support El Salvador in providing training and technical education on geothermal energy development to advance the potential of geothermal energy generation in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Under the auspices of the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Energy Conservation through Energy Storage (ECES) Implementing Agreement, InnoStock 2012 will bring together academics and specialists in the field of energy storage for three days, to discuss underground thermal energy storage; sensible, latent and thermochemical energy storage; and electrical storage.

Hosted by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), the Pacific roll-out of the International Year of Sustainable Energy for All (SE4ALL) will include the launch of: a documentary on energy security in the Pacific; an energy certification and accreditation scheme; and reports on the energy security status of Pacific Island countries (PICs).

The project is anticipated to contribute 1.7% electricity generation to the national renewable energy target of 30% energy from renewable energy sources by 2020. The Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) is one of six countries to have accessed the Pacific Environment Community (PEC) Fund for renewable energy projects.

At its 67th meeting, the CDM Executive Board considered various regulatory matters and adopted a measure aimed at extending the simplified modalities for demonstration of additionality for small-scale CDM project activities, in order to make small-scale projects more attractive. The Board also addressed the sustainable development co-benefits of projects.

The International Energy Agency’s Renewable Energy Technology Deployment (IEA-RETD) unit held a workshop on financing large-scale deployment of renewables, where participants considered new financing approaches and public policy options.

The Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas (ECPA) held a Workshop on Energy Efficiency Strengthening in Social and Low-Income Housing which included presentations on Chilean and Mexican policies and an exchange of information and discussion about national experiences and policies regarding energy efficiency in housing.

The recognition of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) by the Knowledge Center on Cities and Climate Change (K4C) provides new opportunities for the exchange of best practices and innovative initiatives on climate change issues in large cities.

The GBEE website brings together information on green building initiatives from various New York City agencies as well as broader contextual information on green regulation and funding, and history in New York.

The guide presents options for electricity storage and lessons learned from case studies. It indicates that storage can be of value in systems that are transmission capacity-constrained or suffer from low power quality, and that a combination of renewables, storage and diesel generators- all carefully sized and integrated- often yields the lowest cost solution.