With the release this week of version 1.6, the HOMER Grid software, which facilitates the design of grid-tied distributed energy systems, now has three new features that make it a more powerful and efficient tool.
HOMER Grid 1.6 makes data sharing easy. With the ability to export the operational metrics and economic results into Excel documents, users can incorporate calculations from HOMER Grid simulations into financial models or, using Excel, perform further cash flow analysis. This feature makes it easier to integrate HOMER Grid simulation results into financial planning reports and produce more accurate forecasts.
HOMER Grid 1.6 also streamlines the design process by allowing energy professionals to create custom tariffs and save them to the HOMER Grid library. In order to calculate savings on demand charges and energy costs, HOMER Grid incorporates tens of thousands of U.S., Canadian and Mexican utility tariffs. However, users modeling a project outside North America or working with wholesale or contracted retail energy pricing need to work with custom tariffs. The latest version of HOMER Grid allows users to create and save these custom tariffs to the HOMER Grid library for frequent use, providing a simplified design process and smoother workflow.
In addition, the latest HOMER Grid version offers enhanced modeling for PV inverters. With the improved capabilities, users are able to size inverters based on the DC/AC ratio, also known as inverter/load ratio. This feature is especially useful for professionals used to sizing inverters based on the capacity of the PV array and it ensures that solar/inverter sizing results in HOMER conform to industry rules of thumb.
HOMER Grid helps commercial and industrial (C&I) customers reduce demand charges and other electricity costs through the design of behind-the-meter projects that incorporate renewable energy, storage, and other efficient technologies such as combined heat and power (CHP). By accurately modeling and comparing the financial benefits of different distributed energy investments, HOMER Grid users can reduce financial risk the best mix of resources for the lowest cost.
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