RETScreen Expert: what each analysis module does and needs

RETScreen Expert is the clean energy management software published by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). It is used by energy managers, consultants, engineers and finance teams to answer four questions about a facility or a portfolio: how does it compare to similar facilities, would a proposed project pay back, is the facility performing as it should, and how is the whole portfolio doing. Each question has its own analysis module, and each module needs a different slice of data from bills, meters and weather stations.

This guide describes what each module does, who tends to use which, how the Viewer and Professional licensing works, and what data you need to have ready before any of it is useful. If you are already past that stage and want to know how to prepare consumption and cost data for import, the companion article on using utility data in RETScreen covers that in detail.

What RETScreen Expert is

RETScreen has been around since the first version was released on 30 April 1998, and RETScreen Expert, the current all-in-one platform, was released to the public on 19 September 2016. It is developed and financially supported by the CanmetENERGY Varennes Research Centre of Natural Resources Canada, near Montreal, with technical partners including NASA's Langley Research Center for satellite climate data. NRCan describes a user base of more than 800,000 energy, facility and sustainability professionals, growing by 40,000 or more new users a year, in 38 languages, and the software is a standard teaching tool: it is used by well over 1,400 universities and colleges worldwide.

Its scope is broad. RETScreen models energy efficiency, heating and cooling, power generation including renewables and conventional plant, and combined heat and power, for facility types from power plants and industrial sites to commercial, institutional, residential and agricultural buildings. Behind the worksheets sit integrated databases: benchmark, cost, product, hydrology and a climate database of 6,700 ground-station locations plus NASA satellite data covering the surface of the planet. The software runs on Windows 8.1, 10 or 11 with .NET Framework 4.8 or higher; there is no web or Mac version.

The four analysis modules

NRCan's own overview describes the facility-level workflow as a circle of four types of analysis: Benchmark Analysis, Feasibility Analysis and Performance Analysis, with multiple facilities aggregated into a Portfolio Analysis. The circle is deliberate: the intent is that energy is managed as a continuous process, with each module feeding the next over the life of the facility.

Benchmark analysis

The benchmark module compares a facility's energy intensity against reference facilities of the same type. In NRCan's walkthrough, benchmark data for typical facilities is built into the software and changes with the facility type, and the user enters their own base case, sets a reduction target, and the software calculates the proposed-case value. Emissions and cost benchmarks can be set alongside the energy one. It is the starting point for most users: a quick read on whether a building is a good or poor performer before anyone spends money on an audit. Energy managers and consultants screening a portfolio use it most; it pairs naturally with ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager scores and EUI comparisons.

Feasibility analysis

The feasibility module is the historical core of RETScreen. It runs a five-step standard analysis: energy analysis, cost analysis, emission analysis, financial analysis, and sensitivity and risk analysis for a proposed project, whether a lighting retrofit, a heat pump conversion, a solar array or a cogeneration plant. The Finance worksheet takes inflation, discount rate and debt terms and returns internal rate of return, simple payback and net present value; the Risk worksheet runs sensitivity analysis and a Monte Carlo simulation across the key inputs. Engineers, ESCOs and consultants preparing a business case use this module; finance teams read its outputs. It needs a baseline of current consumption and cost to size savings against, which is where bill data enters even a forward-looking study.

Performance analysis

The performance module is where existing facilities are tracked, and it is the one most dependent on utility data. Its Data worksheet is a database: you import historical fuel consumption data for the facility, in any fuel and any unit, then add factors of influence such as weather data downloaded directly from NASA or occupancy levels. The software then calculates degree days automatically and merges the datasets, aligning the periods. On the Analytics worksheet you form a regression baseline between consumption and the factors of influence, set a target, and compare actual to predicted consumption, including CUSUM analysis and a full measurement and verification analysis.

That makes performance analysis the RETScreen home for weather normalization and for IPMVP-style M&V, particularly Option C whole-facility analysis, where the regression baseline and non-routine adjustments are the whole method. Energy managers running a continuous program use it monthly; M&V practitioners use it to verify that a feasibility-stage project delivered what it promised.

Portfolio analysis

The portfolio module aggregates facility files. Each facility is a single .retx file, and a portfolio is made up of many of them, with groups and subgroups so a user can look at all facilities, only those in one province, or only those above a floor-area threshold. The Dashboard worksheet then runs benchmark, feasibility and performance views across the whole portfolio, for example total GHG emissions over time against benchmark levels, filtered by fuel or region. Property owners, school boards, municipalities and public-sector real property groups are the natural users, and it is the module where data logistics dominate, because every facility needs its consumption record kept current.

Viewer mode versus Professional mode

RETScreen Expert is available in Viewer mode free of charge, with premium features available in Professional mode by purchasing an annual subscription. NRCan's subscription page states that the full functionality, including the ability to save, print and export files as well as advanced features, is available in Professional mode by purchasing a renewable 12-month subscription currently priced at $869 Canadian per subscription, plus applicable taxes. One subscription entitles the organization to install the software key on up to ten computers, and educational institutions with one subscription can install it on an unlimited number of organization-owned and student-owned computers for teaching and research.

The practical distinction is that Viewer mode lets you explore, learn and run an analysis in a session, but you cannot save it. For any ongoing use, Professional is the working mode. Among the features NRCan lists as enabled by the subscription key, the ones that matter most for utility-data-driven work are:

• Save, Save As, save in portfolio, export and print, which Viewer mode lacks entirely
• Performance module data features: metering system data, sub-daily data, NASA hourly data, the monthly Performance Tracker, and non-routine adjustment and M&V analytics
• Portfolio features: portfolio meters, annual report, export all data, and dashboard grouping, filtering and comparison
• RETScreen Connect import: Excel and CSV files, Green Button data, direct connection to SQL Server, MySQL and PostgreSQL, and direct connectors to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager and several commercial energy platforms
• Electricity and fuel rate databases and the electricity rate calculator, plus the GHG emission factors database

The full list is on the subscription page and is worth reading before deciding how many keys to buy: at ten installs per subscription, a team of energy managers rarely needs more than one.

The data each module needs from bills and meters

RETScreen's models are only as good as the record fed into the Data worksheet, and the record it wants is specific. For a performance or portfolio analysis, you need, for every meter at every facility:

• Consumption by billing period, in the meter's native unit (kWh, m3, GJ, litres), with the period start and end dates rather than a month label, so that RETScreen can align periods correctly
• Cost by period for the same meter, ideally split into energy and demand components for electricity, so cost intensity and savings can be valued at the right rate
• Peak demand (kW or kVA) per period for electricity meters, if demand-driven projects or demand savings are in scope
• Weather for the site: RETScreen can pull NASA satellite data itself, but if you have local station data it can be pasted in, and the source should be recorded
• Facility details: address and coordinates, facility type, gross floor area, occupancy or production drivers, and the meters that serve it
• Read type: whether each period's consumption is an actual read or a utility estimate, so estimated months can be excluded from the regression

Two data faults do most of the damage. The first is period misalignment: bills that cover 18 March to 17 April keyed as April, then merged with calendar-month weather. RETScreen aligns periods if it is given real dates, and cannot if it is given month names. The second is meter aggregation: a site total keyed into one series when the facility has three meters on two rate classes, which makes the regression fit worse and hides the demand story entirely. Both faults originate in how the bill data was captured, which is why bill extraction that keeps periods, meters and read types matters more to RETScreen results than any setting inside the software.

Getting data in: RETScreen Connect and the alternatives

For a single facility, keying consumption into the Data worksheet is manageable. For a portfolio, NRCan's own guidance is that multi-site owners manage, update and import data in bulk through RETScreen Connect, which in Professional mode accepts Excel and CSV files, Green Button data, direct database connections, and ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The most durable pattern is to maintain one authoritative consumption-and-cost record per meter outside RETScreen, in whatever platform captures your bills and interval data, and export from it in RETScreen's template format on a schedule. That way the same record also serves your budgeting, benchmarking and emissions work, and RETScreen becomes one consumer of it rather than a second copy to reconcile.

For the specifics of the import template, unit handling, and the checks to run on bill data before it goes in, see using utility data in RETScreen.