It is too customised for the AMERICAN MARKET. I would like to see it customised for the international market. For example in countries where there is no interest.
Well, actually… HOMER was originally created for energy access in developing countries, and we think that is still its main strength. HOMER was first and foremost a tool for remote power.
So while we are an American firm, about 75% of our users are not in the US. And actually, we get the opposite comment from those working in the US – Why isn’t your product more geared toward the US Market?
I suspect the origin of all these comments is that the one product, HOMER Pro, is designed to work in remote power systems with a single generator (village power, telecomm, military operating bases, etc), remote power systems with multiple generators (island and other remote utilities), grid-connected systems where the grid is not reliable, and grid-connected systems where the microgrid is primarily for emergencies (resilience). So everyone may think it is perfect for someone else. Not so. It was designed to be a very broad tool. We think that if there is one single market for which it is most perfect, that market is developing countries for both energy access and unreliable grid.
As far as the interest rate goes, you can set the interest rate to zero (or anything else that you wish) in HOMER Pro. The first screen of HOMER allows you to enter the key economic variables (Discount rate and Inflation rate), and run a sensitivity analysis on them if you are not sure what they will do.
You can also set your currency and other advanced economic values through the Project->Economics tab.
For more information, see the HOMER Help Manual, article 7.91 Real Discount Rate.