A partnership between the United States, Canada and Mexico has been formed at the North American Leaders Summit in Ottawa, Canada, that calls on the three countries to increase the amount of clean energy power generation over the next decade.
The North American Climate, Energy and Environment Partnership has a goal for North America to reach 50% clean power, including renewable, nuclear and carbon capture and storage technologies by 2025. Each country will be responsible for achieving the regional goal, but the partnership does support the development of cross-border transmission projects, including renewable electricity.
The North American leaders believe cross-border transmission lines can play a big role in cleaning and increasing the reliability and flexibility of North America’s electricity grid. Currently there are six transmission lines proposed or in review, including the Great Northern Transmission Line, the New England Clean Power Link and the Nogales Interconnection. These six projects would add about 5,000 megawatts of cross-border transmission capacity.
The partnership also calls on more government initiatives and collaboration on the purchase of more efficient products, cleaner power and clean vehicles. As such, the US General Services Administration and Public Services and Procurement Canada plan to increase the percentage of electricity they purchase from clean energy sources to 100% by 2025.
As part of the goal to reach 50% of clean energy use, the governments will work to reduce methane emissions, promote carbon capture utilization and storage, and promote conditioning of spaces and energy efficiency in buildings.
In order to strengthen the reliability and security of the North American security grid, the US, Canada and Mexico are exploring a conceptual model for deepened bilateral electric reliability cooperation. The governments view this as a crucial step toward the establishment of a share trilateral vision for electricity reliability in North America.
Finally the governments will seek to drive down methane emissions in the oil and gas sector and the maritime sector, reduce black carbon (also known as soot), and reduce the use of hydrofluorocarbons.
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