An economic evaluation of renewable and conventional electricity generation systems in a shopping center using HOMER Pro

Abstract

This paper presents the methodology and results of the simulation and optimization of renewables and non-renewables energy system for supply to a shopping center as an alternative to the electric grid consumption, so that to determinate the optimal system. The fundamentals equations used to estimate the operational costs are presented. The software used to simulate and optimize the purposed system is HOMER Pro®, this software can simulate energy systems with renewable fractions and optimize those components to obtain the best system to use. In addition, the renewable systems they have the lowest annual operation cost and total operation cost in the simulated case study, therefore those systems should be consider as the better option to take as an alternative to the electrical grid consumption, but the non-renewable systems could be a great solution if the problem lies in obtaining an emergency plant, capable of generating large amounts of energy in a short period of time. Finally, that the renewable electric generating devices are the better option to use as an alternative to the electric grid consumption but it is recommended the use of an emergency plant with the final purpose of supply large amounts of energy if the situation requires it and this emergency plants should be natural gas electric generating devices or diesel electric generating devices.