Report on

Energy Model Design

via. Homer Software

Alisha Paudel, Lab 1

MEEPE, 2017

Submitted to:
Ashish Shrestha
Assistant Lecturer
DOEPE, 2018/07/13
Contents
1. Homer Software .......................................................................................................................... 2
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 2
1.2 Simulation ............................................................................................................................. 2
1.3 Optimization .......................................................................................................................... 3
1.4 Sensitivity Analysis ............................................................................................................... 3
2. Energy Optimization ................................................................................................................... 4
3. Software and Methodology ......................................................................................................... 4
3.1 Defining the Power System ................................................................................................... 4
3.2 Defining Site Load ................................................................................................................ 5
3.3 Hydro Resources ................................................................................................................... 6
3.4 Wind Resource ...................................................................................................................... 7
..................................................................................................................................................... 7
3.5 Biomass resources ................................................................................................................. 8
3.6 Solar Resource ....................................................................................................................... 9
4. Result ......................................................................................................................................... 10
5. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 10
5.1 Simulation Results ............................................................................................................... 11

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1. Homer Software

1.1 Introduction
HOMER is a free software application developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
in the United States. This software application is used to design and evaluate technically and
financially the option for off-grid and on-grid power system for remote, stand-alone and distributed
generation applications. It allows you to consider a large number of technology options to account
for energy resource availability and other variables. HOMER was first developed in 1993 for
internal DOE (Department of Energy) use to understand the tradeoffs between different energy
production configurations. A few years after the original design NREL made a version publically
available for free to serve the growing community of system designers interested in Renewable
Energy. Since then HOMER has remained a free software application which has evolved into a
very robust tool for modelling both conventional and renewable energy technologies.

1.2 Simulation

At its core, HOMER is a simulation model. It will attempt to simulate a viable system for
all possible combinations of the equipment that you wish to consider. Depending on how
you set up your problem, HOMER may simulate hundreds or even thousands of systems.
HOMER simulates the operation of a hybrid micro grid for an entire year, in time steps
from one minute to one hour.

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1.3 Optimization
HOMER examines all possible combinations of system types in a single run, and then sorts the
systems according to the optimization variable of choice.

HOMER features new optimization algorithm that significantly simplifies the design process for
identifying least-cost options for micro grids or other distributed generation electrical power
systems. HOMER Optimizer™ is a proprietary “derivative free” optimization algorithm that was
designed specifically to work in HOMER.

1.4 Sensitivity Analysis

HOMER lets us ask as many “What if?” questions as we’d like, because we cannot control all
aspects of a system, and we cannot know the importance of a particular variable or option without
running hundreds or thousands of simulations and comparing the results.

HOMER makes it easy to compare thousands of possibilities in a single run. This allows you to
see the impact of variables that are beyond your control, such as wind speed, fuel costs, etc, and
understand how the optimal system changes with these variations.

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2. Energy Optimization
The vast growing economic development leads to the increase of energy demand particularly
electricity. Almost all the countries are planning to develop nuclear power plant in the near future,
despite having quite enormous number of renewable energy potential such as geothermal, high
solar radiation (between 3 - 5 kW/m2/day), biomass and hydro the countries still required more
sophisticated and more reliable source of power for its based load such as nuclear power. The
increases of electricity demand is assumed to be linear with the increased country GDP (Gross
Domestic Products) and population.

When Energy cost, efficiency and environmental implications have top priority, managing the
balance between the production and consumption of electricity is necessary. This Energy
Management software program helps reduce energy cost while improving an overall carbon
footprint.

It is important to develop energy planning in the countries with vast growing economies, since
economic and energy are strongly inter- related. Various studies show a close inter-relationships
between the economic development and the energy use (particularly electricity). Energy
Optimization process which can help reduce energy cost while improving mill operational
performance. Real time data from process monitoring systems, automation system and production
planning system is used for planning and scheduling to help optimize energy use, procurement and
generation. This mill information coupled with the price and energy availability information from
energy providers is used to calculate optimal production of power generation plan, and to get the
best price for the energy we require.

3. Software and Methodology

3.1 Defining the Power System

Define the power system design by clicking the Add/Remove button. Through the Add/Remove
window you are able to select a number of different components including multiple loads,
generators, battery banks, PV arrays and wind turbines and other power system components.

For this example place check

marks besides Primary Load 1,
PV, Wind Turbine 1, Converter,
Hydro, Generator 1 and Battery 1.

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3.2 Defining Site Load
HOMER enables to model load profiles for a single site, this loads can be defined in different ways.
The primary loads could define the power profile for the AC and DC equipment respectively. The
hourly load profile of each load needs to be entered into primary load according to the setup defined
in the schematic and model. An average power load profile can be defined, in case it is not possible
to conduct specific measurements at the site, using data provided by equipment vendors. HOMER
determines the average daily consumption of the system based on the outlined power profiles. By
introducing different values for the power scaled annual average it is possible to conduct a
sensitivity analysis showing the effects of the overall performances influenced by the change in the
average daily power consumption. This analysis could be particularly helpful in case we intend to
verify the renewable performance indicators.

For this example we will set by clicking on the icon for Primary load 1 set the load to AC and
define the hourly profile as indicated in the diagram below. The scaled annual average of the
primary load is 9.71 KW. Figure showing Daily profile graph, D-map, Seasonal Profile are shown
in the figure below.

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3.3 Hydro Resources
The data for the hydro resource was provided and we enter the data manually at the HOMER
software. HOMER uses hydro resources inputs to calculate the power produced by the hydro
turbine each month. For calculation, HOMER uses scaled data, baseline data scaled up or down to
the scaled annual average value. The bar graph showing the stream flow will be created after
entering the data for one year.

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3.4 Wind Resource
Wind resources are determined using the data given in the question. The database provides the monthly
wind speed for a year. Each monthly averaged value is evaluated as the numerical average of hourly values
for the given month. Bar diagram and the data entry is shown in the figure below.

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3.5 Biomass resources
The biomass resource is the source of biogas for generator fuel. We enter the average monthly
availability of the biomass feedstock. For calculations, HOMER uses scaled data, baseline data
scaled up or down to scaled annual average value.

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3.6 Solar Resource
Solar resources are imported directly by HOMER from the NASA Surface meteorology and Solar
Energy database by entering the GPS coordinates. Using the coordinates from the Wind Resource
section, the annual solar radiation of this area is 4.95 kWh/m2/d. For this area the monthly solar
radiation show a more constant trend than the wind speed. It is advisable that the average radiation
should have a constant trend and the annual radiation be above 4 kWh/m2/d in order to have a
reliable source of power coming from the photovoltaic panels.

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4. Result
By clicking the Calculate button, HOMER will calculate the different permutations of possible
designs based on the inputs provided and simulate the power system. According to the design we
have dimensioned we are able to compare the hydro, biogas configuration with renewable pure
wind and pure solar models.

The optimization result panel shows the list of configurations available basing on the input data
we have introduced. It is possible to display the entire list of configurations or to show only the
best solutions per system design.

The overall view shows the entire list of system designs for a specific combination of sensitivity
variables. The models are always listed by the most effective economic configuration, but it often
happens that the best configuration does not meet the requirement of the system in terms of
autonomy, renewable contribution, diesel consumption, etc. If this is the case we need to analyze
multiple solutions and identify the model that best matches the need of our design.

5. Conclusion
By clicking on each of the displayed solution we can access a comprehensive set of data
providing high level of detail on each system component. In addition it is possible to display any
economical information essential to run a thorough business case.The following analysis are
related to the solution having
the following system
architecture:
Photovoltaic system, Hydro,
Generator 1,Battery ( Vision
CP12240D), Converter

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5.1 Simulation Results

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