Meandair to provide Brunel Solar Team Nuna 13 with Nowcasting for Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2025

This year, Meandair will provide the Nuna 13 from Brunel Solar Team with its Nowcasting weather products. 

The team will participate in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge 2025, in a race spanning Australia, from Darwin to Adelaide. With over 3000 kilometers, the race will span several days.  

With both the Brunel Solar Team and Meandair having its main offices in Delft, the Netherlands, this partnership is the perfect excuse to bring the trophy for first place back to Delft. The team's last victory was in 2017, eight years ago.

This year saw a significant change in regulations: not only is this year's maximum battery capacity reduced, also is the race moved forwards by two months, now taking place in the Australian winter. These changes but more emphasis on Energy Management and innovation, as changing weather now means a more strategic approach to the race; determining when to increase speeds staying ahead of cloud formations or continue at a slower speed to make longer use of the charge. Of course this decision making is the use-case in which Meandair's data excels. 

Meandair's Nowcasting is integrated into the teams strategy optimisations and will also provide valuable insights in the weather along the way.

Brunel Solar Team will use various Nowcasting Weather Data Products from Meandair, including Global Horizontal Irradiance (Solar W/M2), Wind speeds, wind directions, temperatures, thunderstorms, precipitation, pressure and more.

Another trick up the sleeve, as later revealed, is that the Nuna 13 will make use of two additional fins: a sword fin and canopy fin. Both fins will increase stability and speed when winds pick up, even propelling the race car forward like a sailing boat. Another smart innovation, for which Meandair is able to provide valuable weather data!

Article updated with additional information and photographic materials August 2025