Irish consultancy Data Only Greater has delivered the second version of the wave and tidal energy arrays design tool DTOcean.
DTOcean 2.0 is the product of 18 months of development by Data Only Greater while partnering with Sandia National Laboratories, a Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory based in the United States.
Following the release in January 2017 of the first version of the tool which was the ultimate deliverable of the DTOcean FP7 EU 3‐year project gathering 19 international partners, Sandia has been helping to identify bugs in the software and evaluate its effectiveness by comparing the output to wave and tidal energy reference models.
The new version fixes several problems identified with the original release, offering full levelized cost of energy (LCoE) calculation.
DTOcean 2.0 also adds functionality to help developers quantify risk to profitability resulting from the environmental conditions faced by ocean energy technologies.
Dr. Mathew Topper , founder of Data Only Greater, said: “Working with Sandia, we found a number of bugs that prevented the tool from functioning correctly. I managed to fix these and, at the same time, solve some of the scientific challenges that remained from the original DTOcean project. That work has now formed the basis of a journal article, currently under review, and this new release of DTOcean.”
Given a set of user inputs regarding the chosen wave or tidal energy converter and array location, DTOcean can automate device layout, balance of plant, logistics procedures and lifetime array maintenance requirements. By designing balance of plant at component level, the impact of individual components on LCoE can be understood.
Random component failures and stochastic weather conditions are combined to form a unique statistical representation of LCoE, which can be used to determine the likelihood of different components or array layouts achieving a particular value, the company explained.
The H2020 EU DTOceanPlus project partners are developing the next generation of advanced design tools. This 3‐year project began in May 2018 and will conclude in April 2021.