Dear Readers,

MERIDIONAL has just crossed the finish line, but the progress made in the last four years of wind energy reserch will continue to bear fruit well beyond the project.

This last edition of the newsletter is the occasion to take stock and collect all key findings, results and materials, that will be useful for further research and industrial uptake.

Over 40 papers have been released by the team of researchers from five European technical universities. A knowledge and data hub, a visualisation software, high fidelity models and a model tool chain for wind farm assement and load predictions were developed. Their adoption covered five onshore, offshore, and airborne wind energy test cases. Countless scientific conferences and collaborations with other projects allowed sharing and strengthening knowledge. Last but not least, a startup has even been launched.

It’s difficult to summarise years of research in just a few lines, so we’ll let the results speak for themselves.

Make yourselves comfortable and discover all the project’s achievements, and make good use of them.

Let in the wind of change!

The MERIDIONAL team

MERIDIONAL's innovation framework and efforts were summarised in final handbook for academic and industrial uptake. This presents the overall data, model and tool chain developed by the project partners, and its applications and benefits for the wind energy community. It also provides an overview on the key takaways and future prospects of modelling and forecasting for wind energy plants.

MERIDIONAL shows that credible wind energy design and operational decisions depend on credible modelling. The central lesson is not that every decision needs the most complex model. It is that each decision needs a model that is fit for purpose, validated, and trans parent about uncertainty. This brief recommends a practical shift: treat modelling evidence as a shared requirement across planning, funding, permitting, procurement and demonstration.

MERIDIONAL developed three key tools for wind farm assesment and optimisation.

• WindLab knowledge and data hub: an open platform designed to support data management, sharing and reuse in wind energy research.

• Vistle visualisation software: an open-source scientific visualisation platform designed for immersive and interactive analysis of large-scale simulation datasets.

• TopDesign model tool chain: a tool chain integration platform developed for mul ti-disciplinary analysis and optimisation (MDAO) in wind energy.

Further details are also available on the project website.

The models and solutions developed within MERIDIONAL were tested in real onshore, offshore and airborne wind plants across and beyond Europe.

• Onshore test case consisted in the installation of a new turbine at the King Plains wind farm (Oklahoma, USA), assessment of energy production, and verification that the loads did not exceed design limits.

• Offshore test case consisted in analysing wind energy plants in the North Sea.  The goal was to use MERIDIONAL tools to predict the energy yield of a large offshore wind farm for inflow phenomena relevant to offshore scenarios.

• Airborne wind test cases analysed three different scenarios:
  1. 100 KW isolated inland AWES
  2. 1 MW inland AWES farm test
  3. 30 MW offshore AWES farm

All MERIDIONAL's publications, including papers, conference proceedings, and datasets, are available and downloadable from both the project website and the public repository Zenodo. 

The consortium marked the project's conclusion with a webinar on 30 September 2026, presenting the open-source tools, models and guidelines delivered and developed in the last few years. The team showed how these solutions reduce uncertainty and increase confidence in wind plant design, supporting industry, researchers and policymakers towards leaner, more reliable and cost-effective wind energy.

The project's closing video gives a voice to the researchers featured in MERIDIONAL. In this collage of interviews, the project team summarises four years of efforts, research and results. 

Politecnico di Milano has launched a start-up. The University spin-off, stemming from MERIDIONAL research on airborne wind energy, develops small-scale windplanes for homes, businesses and off-grid locations where conventional energy systems are costly or impractical. Ventoplani‘s path from lab to market illustrates how funding EU research into clean-energy technologies generates value that extends well beyond the lifetime of the project itself.

AIRE Toolbox: New Resources to Support Wind Energy Decision-Making

The AIRE project has made several tools available through its online toolbox, providing practical resources to support wind farm design, operation, and maintenance under real climate conditions. The toolbox focuses on understanding and mitigating the impact of blade erosion, one of the key challenges affecting wind turbine performance and lifetime. 

Among the tools currently available are:

• Wind Farm Development and Optimization Tool: An integrated modelling and control tool that helps optimise wind farm design and operation while accounting for erosion-related conditions such as rain and sand. 
• ATENEA AEP Prediction Tool: Estimates annual energy production (AEP) and associated losses resulting from blade erosion progression under different rainfall and operating conditions. 
• SALT AEP Prediction Tool: Predicts energy production losses caused by aerodynamic deterioration along wind turbine blade sections.
• Erosion-Safe Operating Tool (ESO): Supports the design and optimisation of erosion-safe operational strategies, including tip-speed curtailment, to reduce blade wear while maintaining performance.
• Blade Erosion Risk Atlas: A spatial mapping tool that identifies erosion-related conditions across different geographical areas using mesoscale simulation data. 

Together, these tools provide wind energy stakeholders with valuable insights to improve asset reliability, optimise energy production, and support more resilient wind farm operations.

Explore the full toolbox on the AIRE website: AIRE Results Page.

FLOW final event and stakeholder seminar

Dedicated to presenting and discussing the project’s key results, the project final event and seminar will take place at DTU Risø Campusin Denmark. The event will bring together project partners and stakeholders to reflect on the outcomes achieved and exchange perspectives on the way forward. Registrations will open in October. 

New paper by FLOW's researchers

The project team has also just published a new research "An experimental campaign to measure turbulence in the marine boundary layer".

The turbulence models in our standards were validated below 100 m. Offshore turbines now sweep far past 250 m. So, FLOW partners measured up there: five lidars on the Danish coast, beams crossing at six points 150 to 250 m above the North Sea. Worth a read if you model, design or certify offshore turbines.