RETScreen Clean Energy Management Software

Overview

RETScreen Expert allows energy professionals and decision-makers to identify, assess and optimize the technical and financial viability of potential clean energy projects. Its decision intelligence software platform also allows managers to measure and verify the actual performance of facilities and helps identify additional energy savings/production opportunities. The software is available in 36 languages and can significantly reduce the financial and time costs associated with identifying and assessing potential renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.

RETScreen Expert models a full range of both traditional and non-traditional sources of clean energy as well as conventional energy sources and technologies, including energy efficiency (from large industrial facilities to individual houses), heating and cooling (e.g., biomass, heat pumps, and solar air/water heating), power (including renewables like solar, wind, wave, hydro, geothermal, etc. but also conventional technologies such as gas/steam turbines and reciprocating engines), and combined heat and power (or cogeneration). Integrated into the analytical worksheets are product, project, benchmark, hydrology and climate databases, as well as links to worldwide energy resource maps.

RETScreen Expert is managed under the leadership and ongoing financial support of the CanmetENERGY Varennes Research Centre of Natural Resources Canada, a department of the Government of Canada. The core team leverages collaboration with a number of other government and multilateral organisations, with technical support from a large network of experts from industry, government and academia. Principal partners include NASA's Langley Research Center, the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP), Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO), UNEP's Energy Unit of the Division of Technology, Industry and Economics, the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank's Prototype Carbon Fund, and York University's Sustainable Energy Initiative.

Licensing and Subscription

RETScreen Expert is available for download completely free-of-charge in Viewer mode. Viewer mode will be sufficient for most energy analysis needs of most users. The full functionality of RETScreen Expert (including the ability to save, print and export files) is available in Professional mode by purchasing a renewable 12-month subscription, currently priced at CAD 869 per subscribing computer (plus applicable taxes) and charged on a cost recovery basis. The older version of the software, RETScreen Suite, is made available free-of-charge upon request .

Highlights

RETScreen Expert Decision Engine

RETScreen Expert - Workflow

A Virtual Energy Analyzer feature allows for the rapid and accurate estimation of the energy production and savings potential for any location in the world employing a five-star benchmark ranking system and without requiring a site visit. A Smart Project Identifier accurately identifies the best projects to be implemented at the facility and intelligently completes a pre-feasibility analysis or energy audit for further refinements onsite. A Financial Risk Assessor automatically assesses the financial risk of the proposed investment and systematically determines the sensitivity of key parameters on a project's viability. A Performance Tracker comprehensively measures and verifies the actual performance of implemented projects and helps find opportunities for further energy improvements at the facility.

Project Life-Cycle Analysis

RETScreen Expert has analysis capabilities covering an entire project life cycle.

Benchmark Analysis allows the user to establish reference climate conditions at a facility site for any location on earth and compare the energy performance of various types of reference (benchmark) facilities with the estimated (modeled) or measured (actual) annual energy consumption of a facility. Energy benchmarking allows designers, facility operators, managers and senior decision-makers to quickly gauge a facility's energy performance, i.e., expected energy consumption or production versus reference facilities, as well as scope for improvements.

Feasibility Analysis permits decision-makers to conduct a five step standard analysis, including energy analysis, cost analysis, emission analysis, financial analysis, and sensitivity/risk analysis. Fully integrated into this five-step analysis are benchmark, product, project, hydrology and climate databases, as well as links to worldwide energy resource maps. Also built in is an extensive database of generic clean energy project templates as well as specific case studies.

Performance Analysis allows a user to monitor, analyze, and report key energy performance data to facility operators, managers and senior decision-makers, including a facility's actual energy performance versus predicted performance. The Performance Analysis module integrates near real-time satellite-derived weather data from NASA for the entire surface of the planet and is connected to the Green Button.

Portfolio Analysis allows a user to manage energy across a large number of facilities, spanning multiple energy efficiency measures in a single residential property to a portfolio comprising thousands of buildings, factories and power plants in multiple locations. Within the software, a user can create a new portfolio or open an existing file. The "My portfolio" database file is made up of individual facilities analyzed with RETScreen. Additional facilities can easily be added to the portfolio database. Sub-portfolios can be created to allow for comparison across different facility types and geographic regions, and a mapping tool helps the user visualize assets across the globe.

With a populated database, the user can enable a portfolio-wide analysis dashboard. The dashboard can be configured to include the results of benchmark, feasibility and performance analysis for each individual facility in the portfolio. The dashboard allows the user to consolidate results to readily track energy consumption and/or production, as well as costs and greenhouse gas emissions, all of which can be sorted by facility type, fuel type, country, etc. These results can then be used to report key metrics to various stakeholders.

Virtual Energy Analyzer

The user can start a new project using the Virtual energy analyzer by clicking on the map icon on the Open tab on the File worksheet or in the ribbon of the Location worksheet. By selecting the facility information and location, the software can rapidly determine the energy production and savings potential for any location in the world employing a five-star benchmark ranking system, and without requiring an actual site visit.

The Virtual Energy Analyzer's comprehensive database of Facility Archetypes allows a user to quickly and inexpensively start a pre-feasibility study or energy audit for a facility. Archetypes are available for a full complement of facility types, including power generation, industrial, commercial/institutional, residential and agricultural. Individual measures can also be selected.

The Virtual Energy Analyzer's five-star benchmark rating system provides a snapshot of the amount of detail in any given archetype. Mousing over the five stars in the top left portion of the window indicates the spectrum of available information. A five-star archetype provides a significant amount of information (including estimated incremental costing of the proposed project) and can be used as an initial draft of a pre-feasibility study or energy audit. An archetype that is rated less than five-stars will still contain a large amount of valuable information, but will benefit from additional user inputs to help refine the analyses built into the archetype.

For example, loading the five-star "Large Office" archetype (Facility type: Commercial/Institutional; Type: Office Building; Description: Office - Large) will rapidly model the energy profile, costs, emissions, financial returns, and risk of an archetypical large office building in the chosen location, automatically adjusting calculations for geographic location. This archetype may in and of itself be sufficient to provide a basic idea of the value of retrofitting a large office building (compared to, say, expending capital on another potential project). But the user can also modify the archetype, depending on the needs of the proposed project and the information that is available at the preliminary stage. For example, the target facility may be considerably larger than the default size modeled in the archetype. Or the user may prefer to work in square feet and Btu, change the fuel input costs, add financial incentives, or set ambitious targets for energy efficiency. The user can simply adjust the relevant values in the archetype and all other values automatically recalculate.

Existing archetypes are updated as necessary (particularly the integrated cost data) and new archetypes are continuously under development.