prof. dr. Ad van Wijk

About Ad van Wijk

Prof. Dr. Ad van Wijk (1956) is one of the most influential sustainable energy entrepreneurs and innovators in Europe. In 1984 he co-founded the sustainable energy knowledge company Ecofys, which eventually grew into Econcern. As chairman of the executive board he lead and developed Econcern into a company with 1200 people in more than 20 countries, sharing the mission A sustainable energy supply for everyone. Until its bankruptcy in 2009 as a result of the financial crisis. Econcern was the holding company of Ecofys, Ecostream, Evelop, OneCarbon and Ecoventures.

Econcern developed and marketed many new products and services in the field of sustainable energy. Examples include the 120 MW offshore wind farm Princess Amalia, several multi-MW solar farms in Spain, BioMCN (a bio-methanol plant in Delfzijl) which is the largest second generation biomass plant in the world, Sea Water Air Conditioning systems in the Caribbean(still under development), the Closed Greenhouse (an energy producing greenhouse) the console (an innovative and cheap support structure for solar systems), the Energy Mirror (visualizing energy consumption in buildings) and Quicc (an electric van).

Ad van Wijk achieved many important prizes for excellent entrepreneurship. Amongst others he was entrepreneur of the year in the Netherlands in 2007. In that same year he received the 2007 Amsterdam Private Equity Club Award. And in 2008 he was top-executive of the year in the Netherlands. He was member of several Supervisory Boards, amongst others Solland Solar Energy (A solar cell manufacturer) and BioMCN

Today, Ad van Wijk is a an independent sustainable energy entrepreneur, advisor and Professor in Future Energy Systems at the Delft University of Technology. He is member of the Economic Development Board Rotterdam and of the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities.