The objective of the optimisation simulation is to evaluate the economic and technical feasibility of a large number of technology options and to account for variation in technology costs and energy resource availability.Ī list of publications that involved HOMER is available from the homepage but numerous others have been completed also. It performs a sensitivity analyses which can help the analyst to do what-if analyses and to investigate the effects of uncertainty or changes in input variables. The simulation considers a 1 year time-period using a minimum time-step of 1 minute. HOMER simulates and optimises stand-alone and grid-connected power systems comprising any combination of wind turbines, PV arrays, run-of-river hydro power, biomass power, internal combustion engine generators, microturbines, fuel cells, batteries, and hydrogen storage, serving both electric and thermal loads (by individual or district-heating systems). A typical analysis can be run after one day of training. It can be freely downloaded from and to date, 32,000 people have downloaded the model. HOMER is a user-friendly micropower design model developed in 1992 by the National Renewable Energy Agency in USA, who have released 42 versions of the program.