Wave Energy Converter Simulator (WEC-Sim), from National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, is the first open-source code allowing developers to simulate WEC dynamics and performance, which lowers costs and reduces R&D cycle time in this pivotal and growing field.

Wave energy can transform the way we power homes and businesses, lending resilience to electric grids. It’s also a potential energy source for ocean observation platforms, marine vessels and desalination to produce clean drinking water.

Wave energy devices face highly variable and sometimes treacherous conditions, making their development extremely challenging and risky. There is no single tried-and-true design for harvesting the vast potential energy of the world’s waters — but there is a wealth of promising ideas, all of which need to be validated and refined.

Before WEC-Sim, no open-source, customizable software existed for wave energy developers who wanted to better understand their creations before submitting them to expensive and difficult trials in wave tanks or open water. WEC-Sim dramatically reduces the uncertainty around how WECs will perform in real-world marine environments, accelerating WEC development and lowering costs.