I am modeling a hybrid wave and wind project. I have component performance data and power curves. We are also deploying wave measurement devices. How do I get this data into the format for HOMER analysis? Also, the hydrokinetic component appears to be similar to the wind turbine.

The hydrokinetic component is modeled after the wind turbine. The hydrokinetic component is relatively simple and flexible. To use it, add a hydrokinetic resource, and import a data file. You'll want to import a text file with a single column of data (no header rows or columns), with 8,760 rows for hourly data, or more rows for sub-hourly or 1-minute data. The data for the hydrokinetic resource is "water speed (m/s)", which makes sense for run-of-river hydro or some tidal resources. In your application, you'll probably want to use different data. The equation for the hydrokinetic power output (and wind turbine power output too) is:

P = n*F(v)

Here, F(v) is the device power curve that you can specify as a function of v, the "water speed". HOMER interpolates between the points you enter. The positive integer n is the quantity of the component.

In the most general case, you could specify a 1:1 power curve by putting two points: (0,0) and (1e6, 1e6), into the power curve. Such a power curve would allow you to just specify the power output directly in kW in your data file, up to 1e6 kW (1 GW). Above the highest power/speed point in the curve, the device will shut down. If you have detailed data of predicted power output, you could use this approach.

If you have data of power output versus wave height, you could use that instead. "v" in the above formula would be wave height, F(v) would be the power curve in kW as a function of wave height, and your input data file would be hourly wave height. Note that you can use meters, feet, or any unit as long as you are consistent in units with "v" and F(v).

If you use the "Enter monthly averages" option for water speed data instead of importing from a file, this will just simulate with that number as a constant for the month. Depending on the resource, this could be a fine approximation. For the wind turbine, we use an algorithm described in the HOMER help article "Generating Synthetic Wind Data" to generate hourly wind speed. We don't have any such algorithm for hydrokinetic, since the resource can represent a lot of different things.