This paper presents a time-domain numerical simulator of oscillating water column (OWC) wave power plants. The whole problem (the simulation of the movements of the inner free surface due to the excitation of the outer sea-waves) is split into two subproblems: an outer one, dealing with the incident, diffracted and radiated waves, solved once for all, and an inner one, concerning the inner water volume behavior. The kernel of this simulator is a hybrid numerical method [Josset C, Clement AH, Duclos G. A hybrid method for time-domain simulation of oscillating water column wave power plants. Ocean Engineering, to appear.] which allows for the coupling of these two problems. After the validation of each part of this simulator, it was applied to the European wave energy power plant seated on Pico Island, Azores, first to estimate the annual performance of the plant, then to simulate different alternative configurations, in a way to improve the productivity. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.