Right now, figuring out whether a piece of land is good for a wind farm is like hiring a team of experts to spend months doing calculations by hand — and three out of four times, the answer is "nope, don't build here." WindSider built a software platform that automates all of that: it maps the wind resources, designs the turbine layout, and estimates long-term energy output — fast enough and accurate enough that banks will actually trust the numbers. Think of it as going from hand-drawn architectural blueprints to AutoCAD, but for wind energy planning. The result is that developers can evaluate more sites faster, kill bad ones early, and get the good ones funded and built sooner.
Wind farm site prospection is slow, expensive, and wasteful — three out of four assessed sites never get built. Each assessment requires months of manual expert work across multiple processing steps, and the results must meet strict bankability standards before investors will commit funding. This bottleneck limits how many sites can be evaluated and delays the deployment of new wind capacity.
WindSider built an automated web portal that generates bankable wind resource maps, designs wind power plant layouts, and produces long-term energy yield assessments. The delivered product includes a portal-integrated application tested with users, replacing the traditional sequence of manual expert steps with a single automated workflow.
If you are a wind energy developer spending months on manual site assessments only to abandon 3 out of 4 prospected sites — this project built an automated platform that generates bankable wind resource maps and yield studies at a fraction of the time and cost. You can screen more candidate sites faster and make go/no-go decisions with lower financial risk, getting viable projects to construction sooner.
If you are a financial institution evaluating wind energy investments and need bankable-quality yield assessments before committing capital — this project developed automated reports that meet the precision standards required by investors and lenders. With 70 billion EUR invested annually in wind installations, faster and more reliable due diligence means quicker deal flow and reduced risk of backing underperforming sites.
If you are an energy consultancy handling wind resource assessments that require expensive expert labor and months of manual processing — this project created a portal-based tool that automates the workflow from resource mapping to plant design to yield estimation. You can serve more clients with the same team size while maintaining the bankable precision your clients demand.
The project objective states that WindSider provides an 'affordable solution' that outperforms the classical semi-automated process in both processing time and cost. Based on available project data, specific pricing is not disclosed, but the value proposition centers on automating manual expert steps that are currently expensive and time-consuming.
Yes. The platform was designed for scale — the objective specifically targets a market where 200 GW of wind capacity is prospected annually, requiring assessment of thousands of potential sites. The automated approach means multiple sites can be evaluated simultaneously without proportional increases in expert labor.
WindSider is coordinated by 3E, a Belgian SME, and has an active product website (windsider.io). As an EIC Fast Track to Innovation project, the technology was developed for commercial deployment. Licensing terms would need to be discussed directly with the coordinator.
The project explicitly targets 'bankable precision' — meaning the automated reports meet the accuracy standards required by banks and investors to fund wind projects. This is the key differentiator: not just speed, but investor-grade quality that replaces the manual quality assurance process.
The project ran from 2020 to 2022 and delivered a portal-integrated version of the WindSider tool for user testing. The project website (windsider.io) indicates commercial availability. As a Fast Track to Innovation project, the explicit goal was market deployment.
WindSider was built as a web portal that covers the full pipeline: resource mapping, wind power plant design, and long-term yield assessment. Based on the deliverable, it was designed as an integrated portal application, suggesting it can serve as a standalone planning platform rather than requiring integration into existing tools.
The WindSider consortium is commercially structured with 5 partners across 4 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Greece, Spain), and a strong 60% industry ratio. It is led by 3E, a Belgian SME that serves as both technology developer and go-to-market vehicle. With 3 industry partners and 2 universities, the project balances product development with scientific validation. The presence of Danish partners is notable — Denmark is a global leader in wind energy, adding market credibility. The SME-led, industry-heavy composition signals a project built for commercialization rather than academic publication.
3E is a Belgian energy consultancy and SME. Contact can be found via their corporate website or the WindSider product site.
Want to explore how WindSider's automated assessment platform could fit your wind development pipeline? SciTransfer can arrange a direct introduction to the team at 3E.
