Product: HOMER Pro

How do I design coal-fired power plant in the HOMER Pro model?

You can define a custom fuel in order to create a coal generator. Follow these steps. I've used coal for the example.
1) Go to the "Resources" tab and click on "Fuels".

2) Click the "Add" button to copy a fuel (Diesel is fine) to your model. You will enter all the properties for coal, so it does not matter what fuel you have selected when you click "Add".
3) Click on the word "Diesel" in the table "Fuels available in model" to select the row. You will see the detailed properties appear in the area to the right.
4) Change the name of the fuel to "Coal" and enter in the properties below. Under "Fuel type", choose "Conventional". If you select "stored hydrogen" or "uses biomass resource", the fuel can only be generated by the appropriate components or resource. You can read more about hydrogen systems and biomass gasification in HOMER Pro's help.
5) If you want to save the fuel to use again in other models, click "Copy to Library". If you do, you will then see your custom fuel appear in the fuel selection drop-down in this Fuel Resource menu and in the component fuel selection menus in all of your models.
6) In the generator menu, you can now select "Coal" from the fuel selection drop-down menu.
7) In the "Fuel Curve" tab of the generator menu, you will need to change the curve to represent a coal-fired plant. The default fuel curve is for diesel, and you should update it any time you change the generator's fuel. You can enter points into the fuel curve table, and HOMER Pro will fit a line for you. Be sure to enter the capacity into "Reference generator capacity" for the generator that you enter fuel curve data.

You can add, modify, or delete items from your library in the "Library view" by clicking on the "Library" button on the menu bar.