Learn about RETScreen Data Onboarding

RETScreen provides data onboarding services on a cost-recovery basis for its enterprise customers to help them with their portfolio-wide deployment of the RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software platform.

There has been a rapid uptake by energy, facility and sustainability managers at public and private sector enterprises who are using RETScreen Expert for portfolio-wide energy management and greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting.

Areas of focus

The focus of RETScreen’s data onboarding service is to assist owners and/or operators who have a large number of facilities in their portfolio to integrate various data for their facilities into the RETScreen platform as quickly, as accurately, and as automated as possible.

For example, the team provides ongoing data management and technical support to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat–Centre for Greening Government and federal departments who use the RETScreen software to prepare the Government of Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory, which tracks GHG emissions from federal operations each year.

Professionals also use the software for detailed energy management activities, and may benefit from this data onboarding service. Some customer examples include the Canadian Space Agency, the Council of Ontario Universities, the Department of National Defence, Natural Resources Canada, and York University.

The scope of this service typically includes…

• Gathering, cleaning and importing data into the RETScreen software for each facility. This also includes creating an automated connection (where feasible) to allow for automatic updates as new data becomes available over time.

• Creating a RETScreen portfolio file, which enables staff to view and analyze this data in a database, map and dashboard for all of their facilities. For each facility in the database, the organization will be able to track energy consumption, GHG emissions and other important sustainability parameters, such as water and waste, according to their needs and availability of data.

• Implementing RETScreen’s measurement and verification (M&V) data normalization system, which energy managers use to monitor the impact of energy improvements implemented over time within a specific facility and for the entire portfolio.

• Providing an initial benchmark and pre-feasibility analysis for each facility, based on archetypical facilities, using RETScreen’s Virtual Energy Analyzer.

• Training the organization’s staff via videoconferencing, which includes a presentation of their portfolio, accompanied by instructions that enable them to analyze and update the portfolio themselves afterwards on an ongoing basis.

• Offering optional follow-up and technical support for the maintenance of the portfolio, subsequently available on an annual cost-recovery basis.

If you are an owner and/or operator of a portfolio of facilities and you would like help with the integration of your data into the RETScreen platform, email RETScreen@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca.