Outcomes

The project was successful, and the new features were widely promoted among the hundreds of thousands of people in the network the RETScreen team provided access to. In the roughly two years between the launch of the new extensions and the end of October 2014, counting both new users downloading the RETScreen software and existing users re-installing the software to benefit from the new features, it is estimated that 150,000 people gained access to the Benchmark Analysis Tool and the Clean Energy Policy Toolkit.

The Benchmark Analysis Tool has become an integral part of project analysis for energy efficiency projects and has directly contributed to better quality feasibility analyses beyond Canada, although specifics are difficult to quantify.

The Policy Toolkit was officially presented at a number of meetings and during webinars, to organisations such as the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation and its Clean Energy Practice Group. It was also highlighted during the RETScreen workshops sponsored by the ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) in 15 West-African countries. The toolkit was used by the Ukrainian government for policy support, and also presented to the Namibian government, which responded positively and expressed an interest in using it. It has been incorporated in teaching at universities such as the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Venezuela and the Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan.

Both the Benchmark Analysis Tool and the Policy Toolkit are constantly evolving tools, and have been updated regularly since the end of the project with REEEP.