APEC Leaders have agreed to an APEC-wide regional goal of reducing energy intensity (energy per unit of GDP) by at least 45 percent by 2035, using 2005 as a base year. The Peer Review on Energy Efficiency (PREE), which is coordinated by APERC, is one mechanism designed to help the APEC economies achieve this goal. Each PREE Peer Review focuses on the energy efficiency policies of a single volunteer APEC member economy, referred to as the host economy. The work is carried out by a Review Team of experts from other member economies and international institutions jointly selected by the host economy and APERC. In some cases, a “Follow-Up PREE” may also be conducted, which is designed to assist former PREE host economies in implementing the earlier recommendations of the PREE review teams.

The PREE project also includes Energy Efficiency Policy Workshop, which succeeds Cooperative Energy Efficiency Design for Sustainability (CEEDS) project as a forum to further discuss key issues in the previous PREEs.

The Peer Review on Low-Carbon Energy Policies (PRLCE) responds to the instructions of the APEC Energy Ministers in their June 2010 Fukui Declaration to “explore mechanisms to encourage APEC economies to set individual goals and action plans for introducing low-emission power sources”. The program is modelled after the APEC PREE discussed above but focuses on policies for promoting the development of low carbon energy supply.

About energy transitions, there is no “single best solution” for achieving net-zero or carbon neutrality, as each economy has different economic and social structures, and geographical situations. APERC believes that various, pragmatic and sustainable energy transitions, that reflect the different circumstances of each economy, are essential. To achieve various, pragmatic and sustainable energy transitions, sharing knowledge and experience among members is important.
The project is to hold symposia to demonstrate the importance of the holistic approach to decarbonisation toward carbon neutrality. It intends to enhance the capacity of APEC economies to pursue decarbonisation towards carbon neutrality.

In recent years, as the APEC region has been continuously challenged with natural disasters that have become enormous, building energy systems resilient against disasters has been an emerging issue. In this narrative, EWG has developed the Energy Resilience Principle with the great help of the Energy Resiliency Taskforce (ERTF) and APEC member economies.
Considering the current situation, measures to enhance energy resilience become increasingly important with the introduction of energy efficiency and conservation and new and renewable energy.
This project promotes the dissemination of the APEC Energy Resiliency Principle for the capacity building of people in charge of policymaking and urban development from developing economies, and to discuss and establish the APEC Energy Resiliency Guidelines for necessary concrete measures by stakeholders of energy resiliency in each economy.

Since 2012, APERC has co-hosted with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry an annual conference to invite energy ministers and corporate leaders from all over the world as speakers in a view to serving as a forum for producing and consuming countries to share views on the long-term prospects for liquefied natural gas (LNG) demand and supply and to promote cooperation toward greater transparency in LNG markets.

The APEC Low-Carbon Model Town (LCMT) project aims to combine energy-efficient buildings, transport and power systems to create communities that affordably reduce energy use and carbon emissions while creating pleasant living conditions. The LCMT project is a part of APEC’s Energy Smart Communities Initiative (ESCI). Please visit the ESCI Knowledge Sharing Platform for more complete information.

At the APEC Ministerial Meeting in November 2014, Ministers recognised that lifecycle cost, environmental impacts, and safety such as resilience to natural disasters constitute the key elements of infrastructure quality. In the same month, APEC approved the publication of the APEC Guidebook on Quality of Infrastructure Development and Investment. Based on the spirit of the Guidebook, with a view to developing high-quality electric power infrastructure in the Asia-Pacific region, Japan proposes to launch an initiative for the quality of electric power infrastructure development. The initiative consisted of the following activities: (1) survey on the current state and outlook of electric power infrastructure in the APEC region; (2) formulating a guideline for developing high-quality electric power infrastructure; (3) capacity building for disseminating the guideline.

The Compendium of Energy Efficiency Policies of APEC Economies was an annual publication intended to promote information sharing in the field of energy efficiency and energy conservation across the APEC economies. It included chapters discussing the current energy situation in each APEC economy. Chapters were contributed by each economy following a common format under a process coordinated by APERC. The contents of the compendium are now integrated into the APEC Energy Overview since 2017.

The Energy and Economic Competitiveness project was directly related to the Declaration in the 11th APEC Energy Ministerial Meeting (EMM) in Beijing, China, in September 2014, which called for specific research on energy and economic competitiveness. The following three tasks were carried out; (1) quantitative analysis of how energy affects industrial competitiveness with the most up-to-date knowledge of energy and industrial competitiveness, (2) make policy recommendations based on analysis for policymakers in the APEC region, and (3) disseminate information to the policymakers and concerned parties. In this context, the two rounds of workshops were held in order to gain knowledge and deepen our quantitative analysis with the support of relevant experts.

The objective of the Cooperative Energy Efficiency Design for Sustainability (CEEDS) project was to promote “high-performance” energy efficiency policies and measures in economies in the APEC region, especially developing economies. Specifically, the project assisted economies that wish to design and implement measures for achieving energy efficiency improvements in a specified sector.
The project built on many of the information-sharing concepts that had made PREE successful. While PREE considers the whole range of energy efficiency policies and measures for one economy at a time, CEEDS considered policies and measures for several economies in one sector at a time.
Each phase of CEEDS had included two workshops drawing together experts in the sector and responsible officials from participating APEC economies, as well as research by APERC on potential energy savings in the sector. The responsible officials at the workshop took the lead, with invited speakers sharing their expertise. APERC researchers assisted at the workshops by helping to organize and moderate the discussions, as well as reporting the outcomes. After 2015, the function of CEEDS was succeeded by the Energy Efficiency Policy (EEP) Workshop under the framework of the Peer Review on Energy Efficiency (PREE) project.