Introduction to Building Recommissioning (RCx) – For Building Owners and Managers

Michel Parent

Eng., M.Sc.A.

Michel Parent has a Bachelor’s (Laval – 1986) and a Master’s degree (Waterloo – 1988, Solar Energy) in Mechanical Engineering. From 1988 to 1990, he was in charge of the Solar Laboratory at the National Institute of Scientific Research in Varennes. He then joined the Energy Group at the Industrial Research Center of Quebec from 1991 until 1996. Since 1996, M. Parent is a partner in a consulting engineering firm, Technosim, specializing in energy efficiency. Technosim has offices in Quebec and Ontario.

Mr. Parent is specialized in energy efficiency in the commercial, institutional and industrial sectors. He has performed numerous audits across North America, which were used in developing long term energy management plans. Mr. Parent is an Existing Building Recommissioning (EB Cx) Agent and has performed recommissioning for over 5 million square foot of office and retail properties across Canada. He is a certified Existing Building Commissioning Professional (EBCP). Mr. Parent is a lead trainer for the Advanced Recommissioning Course developed for the Canadian Federal Government. Mr. Parent is also a Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP) and has developed and implemented many M&V plans compliant with the IMPVP standard. He has also worked on M&T projects implementation to insure continuous improvements to building efficiencies within the context of his EB Cx projects. Mr. Parent has developed training modules for large corporate clients to insure persistence of savings following EB Cx projects as well as on-going improvements. Mr. Parent was also retained by OEE to develop and pilot the introductory recommissioning courses. Mr. Parent is also recognized as an expert energy simulator by LEED and has performed many LEED simulations as well as third party reviews of energy simulations. Mr. Parent has performed over 100 reviews of EE4/eQuest simulations, including many required for LEED submissions. Mr. Parent is a recognized LEED technical reviewer. He is one of the three trainers, recognized by the Office of Energy Efficiency (OEE), in the use of the simulation tool EE4 used for LEED applications. Furthermore, he was contracted by Natural Resources Canada to evaluate the possible adaptations and usefulness of using Portfolio Manager within the Canadian market as a recommissioning tool.

Mr. Parent has been involved with RETScreen since its initial development. He has been in charge of developing the ground source heat pump module for RETScreen as well as being a technical reviewer for the solar (air and water) heating module, the wind energy module and photovoltaic modules of the initial versions of RETScreen. Mr. Parent is also an experienced RETScreen user, having been using the tool since its initial development until today in numerous feasibility analysis studies for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.