On 9 June 2020, EUREC Vice-President and new Board member elections took place. EUREC members chose Wolfram Sparber, EURAC Research, as new EUREC Vice-President and Karina Veum, TNO, as new Board member. EUREC Secretariat and members are thankful to former Vice-President Roger Nordman, RISE, for his work and we wish him the best in his new career phase.

Wolfram Sparber is heading the Institute for Renewable Energy at Eurac Research. Eurac Research is an applied research centre located in Bolzano-Northern Italy. The Institute focuses on renewable energy applications and energy efficiency in buildings and cities and counts over 120 collaborators. Wolfram Sparber served for over 5 years as vice president of the European Technology and Innovation Platform for Renewable Heating and Cooling (RHC Platform).

 

From 2011 till 2019 he was chairman of the board of directors and chairman of executive board of the North Italian energy utility SEL later Alperia. Alperia is one of the main renewable electricity producers in Italy, and offers a series of services in the field of sustainable energy solutions (such as district heating, e-mobility, energy efficiency for buildings and industry, …). Since 2019 he is vice president of the advisory board.

He is co-author of a series of books, journal publications and conference proceedings lately especially in the in the field of overall energy system modelling, urban energy transition and sustainable heating and cooling solutions.

Wolfram Sparber studied applied physics at Graz University of Technology, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona and closed his studies and worked for Fraunhofer ISE in Freiburg im Breisgau

Karina Veum currently holds a position as Researcher & EU manager at TNO’s Energy Transition Unit. Her unit at TNO focuses on accelerating the energy transition to achieve an energy regime free of CO2 emissions in the Netherlands, and to contribute to EUs net-zero emission target, by 2050. It does so through extensive collaboration with Dutch and EU universities, research institutes, companies, NGOs and the Dutch government. In her function at TNO (and ECN, prior to merging with TNO), she is responsible for both acquisition and management of EU-funded projects covering key topics related to the promotion and deployment of renewable energy.

With more than 30 years’ experience in the energy sector, her focus has been on addressing non-technical barriers to the development of renewable energies, covering topics such as grid integration, cooperation mechanisms, and costs & potentials. She has been a regular speaker and moderator at international conferences, seminars and workshops. Prior to joining ECN and TNO, she worked for the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, developing energy efficiency and renewable energy policy and measures. She has also worked for the European Commission as a seconded national expert in the energy efficiency and renewable energy domains. She holds a MSc in Economics from the University of Oslo.

EUREC Board of Directors is composed by the President, Rainer Janssen, WIP Renewable Energies, Vice-president and other seven members, whose main role is to support EUREC Secretary General to fulfill our Asocciation’s mission to promote and support the development of innovative technologies and human resources to enable a prompt transition to a sustainable energy system.