Prof. Werner Beba established the Norddeutsches Reallabor, and managed it with great commitment and personal conviction. At the same time, he was director of the Competence Center für Erneuerbare Energien und Energieeffizienz (CC4E) at the university of applied sciences Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg (HAW). In February of this year, he passed away at the age of 66 after a serious illness. His successor as director of the CC4E will be Hans Schäfers, who since 2017 has been Professor for intelligent energy systems and energy efficiency at HAW Hamburg, and within the NRL was already leading the working group “Gesamtintegration” (overall integration). The environmental engineer and former energy consultant Schäfers will now also be a new member of the NRL project direction group, a position likewise held by Werna Beba.
Beba, born in Bremen 1956, after his studies at the military academy Helmut-Schmidt-Universität in Hamburg, joined the management of the media corporation Gruner+Jahr, where he worked, among other things, as managing director of the publishing house. In 2008, the economist moved over to HAW Hamburg, took over as chair of marketing there and founded the CC4E, an interdisciplinary center that works on the system integration of renewable energies including storage and sector coupling. With his communication talents, the former media manager succeeded in getting very different people from research, business and politics interested in the necessity of the energy transition and climate protection.
Author: Monika Rößiger
