VITAL: Vessel Integrated Turbine Assessment for LCOE

VITAL is an open-source Python package for screening-level assessment of tidal energy systems integrated with vessels, floating platforms, or other deployable marine-energy infrastructure.

The software combines tidal resource data, rotor performance information, vessel or platform assumptions, dynamic rotor simulation, physical constraint checks, cost models, annual energy production, and Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) calculations.

VITAL supports representative workflows for:

• battery-charging applications,
• grid-connected applications,
• design-variable grid-search optimization,
• and early-stage comparison of candidate sites and system assumptions.

Results are intended for early-stage screening and comparison. They should not be interpreted as final engineering, permitting, or deployment recommendations.

Documentation

The documentation is available at:

https://sandialabs.github.io/VITAL/

The documentation includes:

• a quickstart tutorial,
• module-specific tutorials,
• case studies,
• assumptions and FAQ,
• and API documentation.

Prerequisites

Install Conda or Miniconda before creating the VITAL environment.

• Anaconda: https://www.anaconda.com/download
• Miniconda: https://docs.conda.io/en/latest/miniconda.html

These instructions are intended for macOS, Windows, and Linux users. Commands should be run from a terminal:

• macOS/Linux: Terminal
• Windows: Anaconda Prompt, Miniconda Prompt, PowerShell, or Windows Terminal

For users new to Conda, the Anaconda and Miniconda documentation provide installation and getting-started resources.

New to command-line tools?

Most installation steps are run from a terminal.

• On macOS, open the Terminal app.
• On Windows, open Anaconda Prompt or Miniconda Prompt after installing Conda.
• On Linux, open your usual terminal application.

A few tips:

• Type or paste one command at a time, then press Enter.
• Run commands from the VITAL repository folder after cloning the repository.
• If a command starts with cd, it changes the current folder.
• If you close and reopen your terminal, activate the environment again with:

conda activate VITAL_env

If you are unsure where you are in the terminal, run:

pwd

on macOS/Linux, or:

cd

on Windows.

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/sandialabs/VITAL.git
cd VITAL

2. Create the Conda environment

conda env create --file environment.yml

3. Activate the environment

conda activate VITAL_env

4. Install VITAL in editable mode

pip install -e .

For development and documentation dependencies, use:

pip install -e ".[dev]"

Running the tutorials

After installing VITAL, launch Jupyter Notebook or JupyterLab:

jupyter notebook

or:

jupyter lab

Then open the notebooks in the example/ directory.

Recommended learning path:

1. 01_quickstart.ipynb
2. 02_tidaldata.ipynb
3. 03_rotordata.ipynb
4. 04_rotor_simulation.ipynb
5. 05_constraint_checking.ipynb
6. 06_lcoe_calculation.ipynb
7. 07_optimization.ipynb
8. 08_loss_models.ipynb

Case studies are also provided in the example/ directory.

Building the documentation locally

From the repository root, activate the environment and move into the documentation folder:

conda activate VITAL_env
cd docs

macOS/Linux

make clean
make html

Windows

make.bat clean
make.bat html

The built documentation will be available at:

docs/build/index.html

Open that file in a web browser.

On macOS, you can open it from the docs directory with:

open build/index.html

On Windows, you can open it from File Explorer or run from the docs directory:

start build\index.html

On Linux, you can open it from a file browser or run from the docs directory:

xdg-open build/index.html

Managing the Conda environment

Deactivate the environment:

conda deactivate

Remove the environment:

conda env remove --name VITAL_env

License

Copyright 2025 National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC (NTESS).

Under the terms of Contract DE-NA0003525 with NTESS, the U.S. Government retains certain rights in this software.

This project is licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE.md for details.

Third-party license notices are provided in the LICENSE/ directory.