ENERGY SYSTEMS MODELLING AND

OPTIMISATION:

3) HOMER SIMULATION

by
Eng H Chingosho
MREN-Programme
Mechanical Engineering -University of Zimbabwe
 HOMER
• The HOMER Pro® microgrid is a software for optimizing microgrid design in all
sectors.
• Homer Pro, or HOMER (Hybrid Optimization of Multiple Electric Renewables),
simplifies the task of evaluating designs for both off-grid and grid-connected
power systems.
• When you design a power system, you must make many decisions about
the configuration of the system, such as:
• Which components are best for this system?
• How many and what size of each component are most efficient?
• The large number of technology options, variation in costs, and availability of
energy resources make these decisions difficult.
• HOMER's optimization and sensitivity analysis algorithms make it easier to
evaluate the many possible system configurations.
• HOMER simplifies the task of designing distributed generation (DG) systems—
both on- and off-grid.
• HOMER's optimization and sensitivity analysis algorithms allow you to
evaluate the economic and technical feasibility of a large number of
technology options and to account for variations in technology costs and
energy resource availability.
• Working effectively with HOMER requires understanding its three core
capabilities; simulation, optimization, and sensitivity analysis; and how they
interact.
 SIMULATION, OPTIMIZATION, AND
SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
• Simulation: At its core, HOMER is a simulation model. It attempts to simulate a
viable system for all possible combinations of the equipment you want to
consider. Depending on how you set up your model, HOMER may simulate
hundreds or even thousands of systems.
• Optimization: The optimization step follows all simulations. The simulated
systems are sorted and filtered according to criteria that you define, so you
can see the best possible solutions. Although HOMER fundamentally is an
economic optimization model, you may also choose to minimize fuel usage.
• Sensitivity Analysis: This is an optional step that allows you to model the
impact of variables that are beyond your control, such as wind speed and
fuel costs, and see how the optimal system changes with these variations.
• HOMER models both conventional and renewable energy technologies.
 EXAMPLE 1
1a) Calculate the daily load and peak power required by a PV system that
has the following equipment connected;
• Four lamps, 15W each, operated from 6pm to 11 pm.
• Television, 80, operated from 6pm to 11 pm
• Computer, 150 W, operated from 4 pm to 7 pm
• Radio, 25 W, operated from 11 am to 6 pm
• Water pump, 50 W operated from 7am to 10 am.

b)Use the software HOMER to carry out optimal sizing (based on least cost of
energy) of a hybrid renewable energy system comprising of a solar PV array, a
diesel generator, storage battery, inverter and AC load. The important
data for the power system are shown below. The diesel generator dispatch
strategy is Load Following.
 SIMULATION
• Microgrid architectures with different combinations of distributed resources
are developed for the performance analysis in each hour of the year to
determine its technical feasibility and life-cycle cost. Energy balance
calculations are performed based on the system architecture consisting of
different combinations of the components. This paper chooses PV, WT, diesel
generators, battery, and converter as the elements of HPS and the best
feasible configuration is determined that can adequately serve the load.
 OPTIMIZATION PROCESS
• Power system should be appropriately designed in terms of economy,
reliability, and ecological measures subjected to various physical and
operational constraints of the location.
• The optimal system configuration can be decided with the mixture of
components that the system should comprise the quantity of each
component and the dispatch strategy the system should use. The overall
objective is to identify a configuration which has low TNPC.
• Therefore, different system configurations and technical constraints are
simulated and formed various combinations of system components. Finally, a
list of configurations are sorted out and compared. Best feasible
combinations are extracted and the least feasible ones are omitted. The
overall optimization process is shown in the next slide.
OPTIMIZATION PROCESS
 OPTIMIZATION PROCESS
• . The objective function of the optimization problem is given by (1).
 OPTIMIZATION PROCESS
• Overall system annualized cost (Ci) in general form is calculated as the sum of costs
of all components and is given by (3). This cost consists annualized costs of the
components procurement, replacement, and operations including fuel
maintenance. Hence, the total TNPC value is calculated as the sum of TNPC of each
component.

• where C , C , C , C , C are the costs of PV, WT, diesel generator, battery, and
PV WT DG BAT CONV

converter; i the index. of PV, WT, battery, converter, and diesel generator; N the i

total number of system components; CptlC the capital cost of a component; RplC
i i

the replacement cost of a component; M the single payment present worth of a

i

component; OMC the operation and maintenance cost of a component; CRF the
i

capital recovery factor; R the project lifetime; and ir the annual interest rate for the
project life time.
 SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS
• As the TNPC varies based on sensitivity variables chosen, in this analysis,
multiple optimizations are performed to measure the effects of the
uncertainties such as wind speed, solar radiations, grid tariffs, and fuel prices
on the system performance. Hence, the HPS configuration has to be chosen
to tolerate all these situations.