01 October 2026
MERIDIONAL project concludes with final wave of results for wind energy research, industry and policy
PRESS RELEASE
After four years investigating the physics of wind and its impact on onshore, offshore and airborne wind energy systems, the Horizon Europe project MERIDIONAL comes to a close, sharing its final results through a policy brief, an innovation handbook, a results video and a concluding webinar.
MERIDIONAL – “Multiscale modelling for wind farm design, performance assessment and loading” – has worked since November 2022 to improve the understanding of atmospheric physics and its impact on onshore, offshore and airborne wind energy systems. 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.
Practical examples of the work carried out ranged from measurements in complex terrain in the WINSENT test site, to windplanes (airborne wind energy systems) concept and prototyping. The team also explored wind farm design, realistic synthetic inflows stemming from large-eddy-simulation data, and much more.
The event was accompanied by the release of a results video, featuring MERIDIONAL’s researchers. The video summarises the efforts to collect and analyse date, create and test high fidelity models for wind farms optimisation, and collaborate with industrial partners.
Four resources for the wind energy community
Info packs. MERIDIONAL has released six practical info packs on the tools, open data infrastructure and test case findings produced over four years of research. Three cover the project’s tools – the WindLab Knowledge and Data Hub, TopDesign and Vistle – and three report on its onshore, offshore and airborne wind energy test cases.
Policy recommendations. The project has also published its policy recommendation paper, “From better wind models to better decisions: policy recommendations for reliable wind energy modelling, deployment and decision making”, which translates MERIDIONAL’s findings into practical guidance for funders, regulators and industry – recommending that modelling evidence be matched to the decision it supports, and be documented, validated and transparent about uncertainty.
Final handbook. The MERIDIONAL team joined forces to produce a technical innovation handbook. Titled “Advancing wind plant performance and load prediction”, the publication presents the tool chain developed to design, operate and maintain surface and airborne wind plants. The handbook brings together the project’s tools, methods, test cases and lessons learnt into a single reference resource for researchers, industry and future projects.
About MERIDIONAL
MERIDIONAL is funded by the EU’s Horizon Research and Innovation programme under GA n°101084216 and has a budget of roughly €6m. Running from October 2022 to September 20206, the project enabled the efficient and accurate assessment of the performance and loads experienced by onshore, offshore, and airborne wind energy systems.
Contacts:
Project coordinator:
Prof. Dr. Simon J. Watson, s.j.watson@tudelft.nl
Communication Secretariat:
Federica Fusco, Fondazione ICONS, federica.fusco@icons.it