RETScreen Data Onboarding

We provide data onboarding services on a cost-recovery basis for our public sector 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.

Our areas of focus

The focus of our data onboarding service is to assist public sector 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, we provide ongoing data management and technical support to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) – Centre for Greening Government (CGG) and federal departments, who use the RETScreen software to prepare the Government of Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory that tracks GHG emissions from federal operations each year.

Professionals also use the software for more detailed energy management activities and may benefit from this data onboarding service. Some public sector customer examples include the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), the Council of Ontario Universities (COU), the Department of National Defence (DND), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), 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 public sector portfolio of facilities and you would like us to help you with the integration of your data into the RETScreen platform, please contact us at: RETScreen@nrcan-rncan.gc.ca

Featured item

Leading by example: federal facilities deploy RETScreen Expert software

As part of the updated Greening Government Strategy released by the Government of Canada, all federal facilities (more than 40,000 buildings) will be incorporated into the RETScreen Software by 2025.

Read the full federal deployment article