Goal 5: building renewables with BIM: a talented young female engineer

Chiara Butera, 33,  is a construction engineer who joined the Enel Group in 2021 with the role of Building Information Modeling (BIM) Transformation Officer at Enel Green Power. BIM is an approach that uses three-dimensional technology to build digital models in which data pertaining to the planning, implementation, and management of a project are collected and combined, and made available to all project participants.

The task of BIM practitioners, such as Chiara at EGP, is to foster and implement this innovative methodology in the field of renewables.

One of the key factors in the success of BIM, as Chiara explains, is that through it it’s possible to "manage a project's information in a single environment where both internal teams within an organization like ours can interact, but also collaborate and coordinate in real time with all the partners who work with us on a daily basis."

BIM thus enables company and external partners to work as a team and this is the key that makes this approach increasingly strategic.

 

The digital design of renewables

Designing renewables digitally with BIM is possible, and EGP is doing so with several projects. One of the first to use this approach was the construction of the Campillo Wind Cluster, a series of three wind farms near Cuenca in central eastern Spain. Here BIM development was initiated for the area pertaining to the wind farm and the first results of the interoperability between this methodology and the Geographic Information System (GIS) were obtained. (GIS is a system that creates, manages, analyzes and maps all types of data, integrating geographic location data with all types of descriptive information).

BIM methodology was also applied from the earliest design stages in the development of the3Sun Gigafactory in Catania, which will soon become Europe's largest factory for the production of high-performance double-sided photovoltaic modules.

 

The BIM Academy

Precisely because we believe in this approach, and we believe that its dissemination is important, we have launched the BIM Academy, a high-level training course on this methodology, organized together with the Milan Polytechnic and the CISE consortium. It isn’t only open to colleagues but also to EGP's partners, to suppliers who find themselves working with us on a daily basis to better apply BIM in our renewable projects. It is a school with a practical approach: within the Academy there is, for example, a workshop, Project Simulation in BIM.  "It is a course with clear added value," Chiara explains, "to directly experience and make all the participants understand what it means to apply BIM within projects.”

 

Rewarding talent, without gender barriers

Chiara Butera's career path testifies to Enel Green Power's commitment to actively working toward gender equality and rewarding talent without gender distinctions. This is a factor of fundamental importance, especially in scientific fields where women are still underrepresented. According to the United Nations, women account for only 33% of researchers worldwide, and just 12% of members of scientific societies. Only 28% of engineering graduates and 40% of computer science graduates are women.

Gender equality isn’t only a matter of justice; it’s also an investment in a more advanced and prosperous society. Stereotypes can discourage many women from pursuing careers in science: recognizing and rewarding their contributions is crucial to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5  (“Gender Equality”), and creating a world in which gender is no longer an obstacle to excellence.

"For girls who want to pursue a career in science, I suggest that they make a choice without thinking about whether the profession they want to become part of  in the future is dominated by men or women, especially in an innovative field like BIM," Chiara Butera concludes.