Data and Analysis Tools

In cooperation with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) national lab team, NLR develops online resources and data tools that leverage ongoing marine energy projects.

These projects span DOE's portfolio of activities from searchable knowledge bases to focused data analysis tools that adhere to international standards.

Economic Analysis

NLR conducts energy and economic analyses of water power technologies, drawing on decades of experience in system performance modeling, cost estimation, and tool development across the energy sector. NLR integrates techno-economic analysis with hydrodynamic modeling, grid integration, resource characterization, and hardware validation to evaluate technology performance, costs, and economic feasibility.

Marine Energy Atlas

The Marine Energy Atlas is an interactive mapping tool developed to explore potential for marine and hydrokinetic resources. The atlas depicts and maps U.S. wave energy, tidal, ocean, ocean thermal, and riverine current resources in the United States. Users can explore several variables in each of these mapped resource types using data layers.

Marine Energy Software

Hosted on PRIMRE, Marine Energy Software is a collection of open-source and commercial software relevant to marine energy research and development. Users can sort available software packages by different features, view recent activity on their favorite repositories, discover new ones, and register their own.

Marine Energy Technology Development Risk Management Framework

The Marine Energy Technology Development Risk Management Framework helps developers identify, assess, and reduce risk throughout marine energy technology development. Developed by DOE and NLR, the framework supports technology readiness assessment, risk management, failure analysis, and development decision-making to improve reliability, survivability, and deployment readiness for marine energy systems.

MHKDR: Marine and Hydrokinetic Data Repository

Found on DOE's OpenEI site, the Marine and Hydrokinetic Data Repository (MHKDR) hosts all MHK-related data generated from research projects and programs funded by DOE. It is home to more than 1,800 resources and more than 520 GB of data.

The MHKDR protects DOE's investment in research and development by preserving, providing access to, and disseminating data and findings from DOE-funded projects to the greater MHK scientific community, industry, academia, and others. With this collection of knowledge and experience, users can accelerate the rate of innovation in the MHK sector.

MHKiT

MHKiT™ is a set of toolboxes on GitHub with functions that are intended to supplement the existing Python and MATLAB^® software languages and other public code repositories (e.g., WAFO, Pecos). The data processing and visualization toolboxes in MHKiT fill gaps in the marine energy community where software is not available or where existing code does not meet verification requirements. The software is in its third release, leveraging code developed at the national labs, and includes toolboxes that are based on International Electrotechnical Commission technical specifications and other guidelines for power performance, power quality, mechanical loads, resource assessments, and data quality control.

Modular Open-Source Data Acquisition

Modular Open-Source Data Acquisition (MODAQ) is NLR's flexible, open-source data acquisition platform designed to support marine energy and other emerging technologies. With customizable hardware and software options, MODAQ enables reliable data collection, processing, storage, and visualization for laboratory and field deployments—helping partners validate performance and accelerate technology development.

Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy

The Portal and Repository for Information on Marine Renewable Energy (PRIMRE), hosted on DOE's OpenEI website, provides broad access to information on engineering and technologies, resource characterization, device performance, and environmental effects of marine energy projects.

PRIMRE facilitates the commercial development of the marine energy industry by making information accessible and discoverable, integrating existing databases and information portals in the marine energy space, and developing standards and guidelines to promote collaboration within the industry.

PRIMRE provides consistent, easy access to information to help reduce the duplication of effort and to enable the marine energy community to build upon the successes of others to innovate and advance the adoption of marine energy technologies.

Check out the PRIMRE Overview on YouTube.

The MHKDR protects DOE's investment in research and development by preserving, providing access to, and disseminating data and findings from DOE-funded projects to the greater MHK scientific community, industry, academia, and others. With this collection of knowledge and experience, users can build upon prior successes, avoid duplication of effort, and accelerate the rate of innovation in the MHK sector.

Tethys

Found on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory site, Tethys hosts information and resources on the environmental effects of marine and wind energy development, including thousands of documents, educational resources, and online tools. Tethys also serves as the outreach and engagement platform for the international Ocean Energy Systems Environmental initiative. For more information on Tethys, check out the Tethys fact sheet.

Tethys Engineering

Also on the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory site, Tethys Engineering hosts thousands of documents on the technical and engineering aspects of marine energy research and development, such as testing and design, power take-off systems, and cost assessments. In addition, Tethys Engineering hosts a free-use photo library with hundreds of marine energy device photos. For more information on Tethys Engineering, check out the Tethys Engineering fact sheet.

Telesto

Found on DOE's OpenEI site, Telesto contains open-source wiki pages and structured databases that provide information about the development life cycle of marine energy, including planning, designing and building, testing, deploying, and decommissioning. Telesto also contains information on lessons learned, metrics, economics, standards, and compliance.

Wave Energy Commercialization Framework

The Systematic Process and Analysis for Reaching Commercialization (WaveSPARC) project is developing the systems innovation and engineering tools that will enable the development of the next generation of high-performance wave energy technologies.

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