The 12-member executive committee of the network, which was newly elected in May of this year at the first general meeting, was finally confirmed by the local court and presented itself to the members of the network at thesecond general meeting on Monday, 09.12.2019. In order to do justice to the wide range of topics covered by the network, Ms. Monika Noormann, Managing Director of NettCon Energy GmbH in Leer, Germany, was elected as a new member of the Management Board for the focus on energy efficiency, and Dr.-Ing. Alexandra Pehlken, Head of the Steinbeis Transfer Centre Resource, for the focus on resource efficiency. In addition, the members of the cluster relied on continuity when filling the executive board. In addition to Roland Henschel, Thorsten Janßen, Director of BFE Oldenburg, was confirmed as Deputy Chairman and Frank Reiners, Partner of BDO ARBICON GmbH & Co KG, as Treasurer. The other members of the Management Board are Dr. Stephan Barth, Managing Director of the ForWind Wind Energy Research Centre, Ubbo de Witt, Managing Director of Projekt GmbH, Dr. Till Luhmann of BTC AG, Dr. Jürgen Meister of the OFFIS IT Institute, Burkhard Meiners, Managing Director of AgroEnergien, Prof. Ulrich Scheele, Partner of ARSU GmbH and Thorsten Wieting, Head of the Oldenburg/Varel network region of EWE NETZ GmbH.

The statutes of the network were also adapted to coincide with the 15th anniversary in 2020 and topics such as contributions to climate protection, strengthening sector coupling and cross-sector cooperation as well as the digitalisation of the energy industry have found their way into the network. With the establishment of two new working groups at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, these topics will be brought to life by the members of the network. In addition to the 15th anniversary of OLEC, the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) will also celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2020. One focus for networking work and the various events will therefore be the question of what the balance after 20 years of the EEG will be, what future challenges the energy industry will have to face and with what solutions the Northwest can make a contribution to the energy system of the future in Germany and Europe.

Picture caption: The new OLEC Board of Directors (from left to right): Dr. Till Luhmann (BTC AG), Thorsten Wieting (EWE NETZ GmbH), Prof. Ulrich Scheele (ARSU GmbH), Roland Hentschel (City of Oldenburg), Burkhard Meiners (AgroEnergien GmbH), Dr. Alexandra Pehlken (Steinbeis Transferzentrum Ressource), Monika Noormann (NettCon Energy GmbH), Dr. Stephan Barth (ForWind), Dr. Jürgen Meister (OFFIS e.V.), Thorsten Janßen (BfE e.V.), Frank Reiners (BDO ARBICON GmbH & Co. KG), not pictured: Ubbo de Witt (Projekt GmbH). Picture: OLEC e.V.