Since I started out in the hydropower equipment supply industry, IWP&DC magazine has always been around.
If I’m honest, I came into hydropower without any idea about what it was. I’d studied English and Russian translation as my first university degree and was hired as an assistant to international sales to overcome communication barriers between sales, engineering, and other related departments of what was then called the ‘turbine division’ in the company. In this assistant role, I was to support all requests from sales, or requests for sales, while the sales engineers were out in the field. Being a central hub I knew where everybody was, which projects were on the horizon and which activities around bidding and customer relations had to be done. This – over time and almost naturally – also led to more marketing and communications-related tasks, the production of news for employees’ as well as for customers’ newsletters and the development of more modern communications materials and contributions, which partially substituted the purely technical articles and papers by engineers for engineers.
Some of the memorable projects I’ve worked on certainly include Itaipu in its construction phase. This was the mega project during my first years, as well as all the other Brazilian projects built during that time. Later on, Three Gorges came into play with lots of delegations from China touring the mainly Europe-based equipment manufacturers. With these two projects alone, the industry pushed the boundaries of what was possible in terms of machine size and performance capacity. I still feel lucky to have witnessed the breaking of these records, and my own company – Voith Hydro – always helped to develop and drive these advances and the magnitude of these machines.
I had the opportunity to visit both sites later on when they were operational. At Itaipu, I even had the impressive opportunity to wander through the spiral case of one of the two machines, added on later, together with some communications colleagues from other Voith divisions. They were absolutely speechless, while I was simply proud. These engineers could push the limits towards larger machines and higher installed generation capacity, but the precision still had to be maintained at the same time. So, the very large and the very tiny do meet within the products of this industry in an admirable way.
Growing amount of paperwork in hydropower
One noteworthy aspect of my work was the experience that paperwork grew tremendously over a five-to-ten-year period. While a prequalification from a customer originally was like a thin book, and the offer submittal may have been three centimeters thick, this grew in many cases to a thick book and three to five thicker books for the offer, resulting in dozens of binders with the documentation required to submit a bid. Even with the advent of computers later on, there was no way to achieve a dreamed-of paperless office.
The best picture we ever took was the 99 binders per copy for the Three Gorges project: somebody climbed up the hill of boxes with around 500 binders in total to sit on them and have the photo taken, after weeks of compiling and working in the biggest meeting room that the company could provide at the time.
On another note, I was also witness to the concentration of the suppliers’ market when many companies in Europe merged or were subject to acquisitions. I was part of a couple of historical movements here and involved in the extensive due diligence processes required.
Back then I was surrounded by men – engineers and technicians – who respected me despite my non-engineering background. They frequently helped me learn the level of technology I had to master to help my understanding and communication with others.
My current work focuses on gender in hydropower but in those days, there simply were no women in technical functions. The only women were typists, secretaries, or office clerks, and maybe a few in commercial roles. When I was promoted to head of communications for the hydro division I did meet more women in comparable ranks, and over time more came in through IT. This movement has been very slow until today, although women are still found much more in commercial, communication, and HR functions than in engineering.
Wake up call for hydropower
The hydropower industry has experienced turbulent times. In the past the hydro sector was more or less under attack for its larger projects, mainly by NGOs for not committing to social and environmental rights. Political influence was also exerted in company headquarters in European countries, with the projects implemented in Asia or Africa or South America. In North America, the licensing and re-licensing of hydropower plants underwent a dramatic change with a heap of rules and regulations. Here, even re-licensing sometimes would take around ten years.
Worst of all – but also a tremendous wake-up call – was the World Commission on Dams’ report in 2000. Its results and recommendations threatened the sector with a moratorium for any new hydro development. This was the time when the International Hydropower Association was founded as the industry association and tasked with finding solutions. The multi-stakeholder process undertaken since then has been a success, resulting in a protocol to measure the sustainability of hydropower projects, which has since evolved into a strict Hydro Sustainability Standard.
Looking to the future
The possibility to assess and prove the sustainability of a project using a solid standard makes life easier for all players involved – important financial or export-related institutions now view hydropower as an option again for responsible project planning and implementation. And the companies within the sector have learned to seek common ground with NGOs, but also recognise the need to assess the sustainability risks of a project for their own benefit – in the same way that they assess commercial and technical risks.
In addition, I have seen an increase in young people and women coming into the sector during the last couple of years again; they were still not so prevalent when I took early retirement ten years ago. I had long felt that the sector was attracting fewer talents and engineers than in earlier times. Still, the competition for the best of talents across renewable energy technologies will create even more capacity issues, in terms of numbers of people as well as the education they come in with, and more will have to be trained. For this reason alone, the sector must change its attitude and increase its attractiveness to younger people, especially women. Most companies have now recognised the benefits of diversity, but they still have some way to go to achieve gender equality.
Key lessons
For me, as a woman, the advice I would give to others is to: encourage yourself and other females to stand up, raise your hand and your voice, network for your benefits and make yourself seen. Nobody will promote you if you have not been visible in meetings and presentations.
Nobody really helped me to progress here a lot, so I simply took responsibility for my own path, but would often have wished for a mentor. Today I have taken this lesson on board to mentor and coach younger women and to encourage them to go their own ways and pursue what they want to achieve. It’s also important to ask about and clarify any hidden agendas or bias that are encountered.
In my own job interview in 1980 I was told to also take care of guests arriving at the office. Since I had worked in an assistant-secretarial role before and had different expectations of what this job should be, I wanted to make myself clear. I said: “I will not do these three things – make coffee, water flowers, or wear a skirt if I don’t feel like wearing one!” The two guys – one of them my boss-to-be – laughed their heads off. I got the job.
Once in hydro, always in hydro
I have a motto for the industry that I’ve worked in for so long myself – without the intention of doing so in the beginning: “Once in hydro, always in hydro”. Even though I widened my perspective with the foundation of the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition (GWNET) in 2017, I am still attached to the sector.
I recently helped to develop a study for ESMAP/World Bank on Gender Equality in Hydropower and co-founded a network for Women in Sustainable Hydropower (WISH). I’m also working on the COST initiative on Pan-European Sustainable Hydropower, where we are in the process of building up mentoring for women.
Last, but not least, I am serving in the industry chamber of the Sustainability Standard governance structure and am still closely involved with the Hydropower Sustainability Alliance (HSA).
