Open Source Design Tool to Optimize Wave & Tidal Arrays Launched

A pioneering wave & tidal energy design tool - DTOcean - was officially launched on January 9 as an open source software package. The tool will assist project developers to design wave and tidal energy arrays by identifying optimal layouts, components and procedures. An active but growing user community is emerging around DTOcean, which industry and research communities are encouraged to join.

DTOcean has been produced through a three-year collaborative project funded by the European Commission. It gathered 18 international partners including utilities, project developers, industrial suppliers and R&D organizations, coordinated by the University of Edinburgh.

Henry Jeffrey, coordinator of the DT Ocean project, said, “Access to high quality design tools is a pre-requisite for reducing costs in complex engineering projects, such as such as wave and tidal arrays. With the world’s first ocean energy arrays now under construction, the launch of DTOcean is very timely.”

“The launch of the software presents a great opportunity for the industry and research organizations to engage with the DTOcean software to make it work for them. There is already active and growing support community around DTOcean, and we will hope to see this thrive as the sector develops,” concluded Mr. Jeffrey.

The DTOcean software package is now available as a free download along with manuals and tutorials from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre website.

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