Regional Dialogues on Planning-to-Investment — Latin America and the Caribbean

Virtual

The Global Coalition for Energy Planning (GCEP) convened three weekly virtual sessions from 2 to 18 June 2026 on the planning-to-investment interface in Latin America and the Caribbean. Co-hosted by IRENA — in its capacity as Secretariat of the Coalition — the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the Government of Brazil as Coalition Chair for the 2025–2026 cycle, the Cycle gathered planning institutions, regulators, system operators, development banks, and private financiers to discuss how national energy plans can better support the institutional and financial decisions that turn plans into infrastructure.

Background

Across LAC, the challenge is no longer the absence of plans but the persistent gap between what plans communicate and what regulators, developers, and financiers can act on. Closing this gap is essential to delivering the COP28 UAE Consensus goal of tripling renewable power capacity to 11.2 TW by 2030. The LAC Cycle is the first in a regional sequence that will extend to Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Sessions

  • Session 1 — Investor signals from energy plans (2 June 2026)

    • This session opened GCEP's Regional Dialogues on Planning-to-Investment by examining how national energy plans in Latin America and the Caribbean are interpreted by finance, regulatory, and implementation actors. Drawing on country perspectives and institutional experience, the session explored which planning signals most effectively communicate investment direction in areas such as electrification, grid modernisation and system expansion. You can find the concept note and agenda here.     

    Presentation slides can be accessed here

     

  • Session 2 — Grids, flexibility, and storage as investability conditions (11 June 2026)

    • This session examined how transmission expansion, system flexibility and storage shape the credibility and usability of national energy plans in Latin America and the Caribbean. Drawing on country and institutional perspectives, it explored what planning processes need to make visible about infrastructure needs, timing and implementation dependencies, how regulators, utilities, system operators and finance actors interpret this information, and which coordination mechanisms help move identified needs toward regulatory decisions, procurement, project preparation and financing.

    Presentation slides can be accessed here

     

  • Session 3 — Institutional configurations and instruments that mobilise capital (18 June 2026)

    • This session closed GCEP's Regional Dialogues on Planning-to-Investment by focusing on the institutional architectures that translate national energy plans into viable project pipelines. Drawing on country experiences and regional models from Latin America and the Caribbean—including competitive auction systems, private transmission regulatory frameworks, and integrated resilience models—the session explored how planning bodies, regulators, system operators, and development banks can best coordinate. Participants will examine what makes these institutional structures effective, which mechanisms are transferable across the region, and how the Global Coalition for Energy Planning (GCEP) can sustain follow-on collaboration with country institutions and regional partner.

    Presentation slides can be accessed here

 

Partners

  • IRENA
  • Inter-American Development Bank
  • Government of Brazil (Ministry of Mines and Energy)

You can find the full concept note and agenda here. For more information, contact gcep@irena.org or visit gcep-irena.org.