Computational Simulation & Optimization of a Solar, Fuel Cell and Biomass Hybrid Energy System Using HOMER Pro Software

Abstract This paper shows the approach to the design aspects of a hybrid energy system that will target educational institutes. The purpose of this work is the computation, simulation & optimization of hybrid energy system. The hybrid energy system comes from the biomass gasifier generator set, solar and fuel cell with battery storage system to fulfill partially load requirement of Energy Centre, MANIT Bhopal. The computation software used for this work is HOMER Pro 3.2.3. HOMER Pro is a design simulation model that analyzed the sizing, costing optimization and control strategy of the hybrid energy system. The analysis of such hybrid energy systems feeding AC primary load of 101 kWh/day energy consumption with a 5 kW maximum load demand. The simulation results show that optimized size of components, biomass gasifier (5 kW) - solar (5 kW) - fuel cell (5 kW) and optimized cost of energy about 15.064 Rs/kWh