On 21st November 2025, the Hrvatska zaklada za znanost (Croatian Science Foundation) has ceremonially presented and awarded contracts for 11 exceptional research projects selected under the public call of the MAPS – Multilateral Joint Research Projects program, an international program aimed at strengthening top-level research through multilateral cooperation.
We are proud that one of these top-quality projects is from FER (Department of Energy and Power Systems). Project WISE (Wind turbine lightning safety evaluation) involves research teams from three countries:
➡️ Croatia: project leader assoc. prof. Božidar Filipović-Grčić, University of Zagreb / Sveučilište u Zagrebu FER; partners: University of Split, assist. prof. Antonio Šunjerga, industry partner company ENCRO d.o.o.
➡️ Switzerland: project leader assoc. prof. Davide Pavanello (Institute for sustainable Energy, School of engineering, University of applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland), prof. Farhad Rachidi and prof. Marcos Rubinstein (EPFL, Lausanne).
➡️ Poland: assoc. prof. Grzegorz Maslowski - Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Fundamentals, Rzeszow University of Technology
The general objective of the project is to provide new recommendations to standardization bodies to better protect wind farms against lightning. To achieve this final goal, the project aims to realize the following specific objectives:
💡 Establish a state-of-the-art wind-turbine lightning observatory in Croatia to obtain reliable statistical data on upward lightning to wind turbines.
💡 Better understand the mechanisms of the initiation of upward flashes from wind turbines and the differences with respect to static tall structures.
💡 Evaluate the impact of upward lightning current on composite materials and develop more resilient ones.