Two conflicting trends are intersecting to create a need for a tool like HOMER. The first is the increasing diversity of new power technologies. The second is the decentralized nature of renewable energy resources, which have become and will remain the fastest growing sector of the power industry. Because of its inherently decentralized or diffuse nature, renewable power is often best deployed in relatively small projects. These projects require simpler, more accessible analytical tools because they can’t support the high transaction costs of the development process for larger projects. This conflicts with the first trend since there are now a greater number of options to analyze. Renewable resources, in particular, are often best deployed in a hybrid configuration which greatly increases the analytical complexity. These two conflicting trends create the market need for HOMER.
