The operation of the electric power "grid" (Figure 1) has been complemented or augmented by the Internet, which played a key role in the evolution of the electric power industry. The motivation for "radical deregulation" was to create an electricity spot market premised on "Performance-Based Rate Making" (Navarro 1996) that could be operated over the Internet, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, deregulators physically and psychologically dismembered the electric power culture using ICT. Therefore, as noted by Kling (1992), the evolution of electric power generation, distribution, and transmission is not surprisingly a story of complicated complementarities that is played out over an extensive history, in a rich ecology, and recently with the aid of ICT.
Figure 1. The vision ... "Grid 2030". Possible future state of the grid as envisioned
by Siemens and the US Department of Energy
(reproduced with permission of Siemens Westinghouse Power Corporation, from Jimmy Glotfelty, Transforming the Grid to Revolutonize Electric Power in North America, January 27, 2004 slides in pdf)
The ICT-enabled deregulation shifted attention to functional aspects during the grid system design. The shift naturally emphasizes some stakeholder assertions based on assumptions of rationality ignoring many of the negative social and political aspects of computing (Kling 1978a, Kling and Jewett 1994). The positive views of ICT held by the electric power industry, policy makers, and the public have been institutionalized over time (Kling and Iacono 1989) as their dependency on reliable and cheap electricity has grown. The unfounded belief that ICT is an effective "agent of change" (Kraemer and Kling 1985) smacks of utopianism (Iacono and Kling 1996) and/or religious overtones (Nobel 1997). However, ICT directives imposed by governments to stimulate innovation and diffusion (King et al. 1994) are likely an ineffective or incorrect prescription for complex socio-technical ecologies like the electric power industry.
Figure 2. Control Center for the California Independent System Operator (Cal-ISO). This is the high-tech electricity traffic controller for 75 percent of the state's load (energy demand) through control of the transmission system previously operated by the three investor-owned utilities: Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric
(reproduced with permission of Cal-ISO from http://www.caiso.com/aboutus/infokit/ControlCenter.html)
The pressing question for the regulators and the industry still remains today since the 1990s deregulation failed. Everyone acknowledges ICT is a necessary change agent to deregulate, but is it a sufficient catalyst to ensure deregulatory success given its technological deterministic application in the electric power domain? To uncover the deeper issues, data was collected at a GDCC rich with ICT using ethnographic methods. The paper describes how complex relationships can be analyzed in order to understand the vague complementarities and dependencies that often elude rational actor models. The research extends the web model in order to show how:
"draw 'large' social boundaries around a focal computing resource so that the defining situation includes: the ecology of participants who influence the adoption and use of computer-based technologies, the infrastructures for supporting system development and use, and the history of local computing developments".Computing infrastructure is analogous to "urban infrastructure", i.e. electric power, telecommunications, transportation, or sewage infrastructure (Kling 1992). Infrastructure concepts and structural properties are tightly coupled. Infrastructural architecture is dependent upon emerging scientific discovery of new compounds and/or engineering techniques to apply building materials in order for architects to create new designs. The spider web is a natural phenomenon that is useful when considering architecture, infrastructure, and utilization of compounds. Recent research into spider webs has revealed some interesting structural properties that augment the web model metaphor. Spider webs are presented in this paper to draw out a deeper architectural analogy with the connection to urban infrastructure in order gain additional analytical leverage by providing a visual image of the utility's control mechanism.
The spider proteins are complementary in the design of a particular web just as artifacts are common in human created ICT infrastructure. Software that integrates software or hardware components is often referred to as "glue code", a clear connection with the spider web production process or the merging of technologies by utilities. There is yet another set of complementary and reciprocal interactions one can see in the analogy with "urban infrastructure".
Conventional building architects respond to new building materials or processes by creating new building architecture designs using new computer numerical controlled manufacturing (MacKenzie and Wajcman 1992) that releases them from many of the traditional space restraints (Perry 2004). "Bringing computing to the scaffolds promises to change the work practices, organizational structures, and productivity of all of the actors involved in construction projects, including architects, contractors, subcontractors, and labor groups" (Boland et al. 2003). These new ICT tools emerged from a series of joint social and technological interactions.
For example, far-reaching possibilities exist for "bucky tubes" (i.e. carbon nanotubes) (Figure 3); due to their amazing properties the materials could be used in the production of cars, roads, or architectures. Bucky tube elevators could reach outer space, thereby replacing cumbersome space shuttles. Besides being stronger than any other building material currently known, bucky tubes can transmit data. Regardless of the feasibility of bucky tubes, the concept of every car being a node on a network comprised of all roadways is thought-provoking. The integration complexity of that sort of socio-technical architectural design is clearly a "wicked" problem (Rittel and Webber 1973) having no real right solutions, only good or bad ones.
Figure 3. Model of a bucky ball (fulleren) and carbon nanotubes
(reproduced with permission of NCCR Nanoscale Science from http://www.nccr-nano.org/nccr/media/gallery/gallery_01/gallery_01_03)
Modern architects attempt to control ecology through the manipulation of the laws of physics using ICT (e.g. AutoCAD) within a socially and historically context-sensitive process (Table 1). A conventional approach to these problems uses rational actors within "discrete-entity" models that are "a-contextual, a-historical, and assume that adequate infrastructure can always be available as needed" (Kling 1992); ignoring the societal or ecological influences.
Hughes (1992) argues that the early electric power industry evolution is a good example of society applying engineering and scientific knowledge in a collaborative manner to difficult problems that are holding back progress. He refers to these constraints as "reverse salients", but lacks the structural view of ICT. Modern interrelationships between data acquisition, storage, and analysis led to an electric power industry-wide adoption of regulations and technologies for voluminous telemetry, which of course created a push for more storage. This cycle of events created the basic building blocks (i.e. metaphorically like the evolution of the spider's algorithm to assemble proteins) driving the evolution of a complementing ICT infrastructure.
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Interlacing beams | Interconnected webs | Power line networks |
Communication via vibration | Communication through web strands movements | Analog charts reading fluctuating current |
Connect to surroundings | Connected webs at border | Intertie connections |
Tensile strength | Tensile strength | Load capacity |
Control of inhabitants | Control of passing prey | Control of population |
Knowledge to analyze and design for construction | Context-specific construction capabilities | Plant and equipment knowledge used in design |
Clear boundaries | Territorial | Geographically defined |
Reflects space and time | Reflects space and time | Reflects space and time |
Context-specific adaptation | Environment adaptation | Context specific adaptation |
The intimate details of the respondents' control center ecology facilitate partaking in the community's ontology. In the past, a self-imposed mandate of community service, open communication among utility personnel, sharing of technology, and an attitude of camaraderie contributed to a stable organizational structure and operational processes pervasive throughout industry. Informants shared how they felt a stable commitment to stakeholders resisted change thrust upon them in the form of negative policy-making.
Ethnography complements the web model (Kling and Scacchi 1982, Kling 1992) since its foci is the ecology of the participants, infrastructure supporting their activities, and history leading up to the current situation. Ethnography allows the researcher to first observe their ecology and interaction with various infrastructures. Semi-formal interviews clarify many of the intricate details observed early in the ethnographic process such as how and why certain ICT infrastructure is used, which often reveals a common history so important to understanding the current ICT architecture.
Ethnographers are a type of instrument who function better as observers if they are ignorant of ecological details, e.g. the richness of a foreign culture is often brought out in more intricate detail before the observer "goes native". The computer infrastructure, rich history, and ecological unity of the field site, the GDCC, were unfamiliar to the observer. Therefore, the staged engagement of observation, casual conversations, and then semi-formal interviews augment the data collection.
The observer of this extended interaction and analysis of industry data and standard operating procedures became immersed in the GDCC culture. The observer participated in meals on and off site. In essence, the observer went "native" to the degree that at one point a joint 1-day tutorial was conducted at a conference with GDCC personnel. After data collection in the field ceased, the GDCC data was triangulated with the appropriate engineers in academia for clarification and to get a non-utility viewpoint for tangential research activities. IEEE electric power standards-making processes and meetings were also utilized as an external validation of the data.
The importance of the informants' domain knowledge was translated into simple economics near the end of the field research. Both the California Independent System Operator (CA-ISO)and the Power Exchange (an intermediary that is now bankrupt) hired away (i.e. "hijacked") key grid dispatch personnel with lucrative salaries. These organizations had to pay these salaries because the domain knowledge necessary for their operations could only be acquired from these experts. Similarly, the only way for an outsider to truly understand the intricacies of the GDCC was to have the informants share their intuitive and historical expertise over an extended period of time, such as one experiences during an ethnographic study.
The problems of regulating information system (IS) design were evident from the ethnographic data, which acted to contextualize a myriad of domain-specific scenarios that played out during deregulation. The nuances affecting IS design did not show up in the historical or public literature, but emerged from the qualitative data. Nevertheless, understanding some of these historical implications will empower the ethnographic data sprinkled throughout this paper. Table 2 presents an historical timeline showing how the electric power industry -- the largest industry in the USA as of 1994 (Brennan et al. 1996) -- has evolved through effective marketing, social factors, and political maneuvers (Hughes 1983, Hughes et al. 1987, Cowan 1992, Hughes 1992, Hirsh 1989).
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1800s | Gas lamp dominates | Existing distributed infrastructure | N/A |
1850s-1880s | Edison emerges on scene | Centralized plant and equipment for service | Rudimentary communication, via electric power lines exhibiting behavior, gives rise to early knowledge workers who leverage grid architecture |
1880s | AC/DC tradeoff analysis | Inventions impact network configuration and scope | |
1890s-1930s | Mergers and acquisitions | Central plants became substations. Extending lines of service created command and control problems, i.e. a structural tension | Introducing tension into system was one driver or precursor for computerization |
1935 | Public Utility Holding Company Act | Created a vertically integrated structure with a natural monopoly foundation | Perfect organizational structure to maximize centralized computing architectures |
1950-1970s | Increasing customer base with the associated need for significant data collection and management | Populating nodes shifts emphasis from a "spur" to network configuration resulting in the increasing structural fortification at key points, e.g. lattice structure | Incremental growth in mainframe computer facilitates and telemetry to each utility's control center |
1973-1974 | Oil embargo by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) (Anon 1973) | Reconfigured supply chain; economic strain on industry slows construction of oil-based generation facilities | Increasing dependence on simulation and modeling to forecast demand and supply |
1978 | Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) forced utilities to purchase energy from unconventional sources | Evolved structure in a manner necessary to allow for access to previously restricted parties, e.g. similar to structural modifications to allow handicap access | Integration of data with parties previously not required; new types of economic models utilized |
1980s | Deregulation of other urban infrastructure, e.g. gas (R. J. Karg Associates 1998) and airline industries (Meyer 1999) | Changing public, state and Federal opinion created pressure to change structure | ICT (e.g. Sabre's airline systems) seemed to enable restructuring |
1990s | Increasing technological collaboration of utilities, e.g. Electric Power Research Institute (ERPI) budget nears $1 billion | Unification of structures due to the common utilization of technologies supported by shared industry research | Extensive proliferation of electric power ICT to optimize operations and control structures |
1992 | Energy Policy Act of 1992 | Mandating the use of new building materials and opening the door for unconventional contractors to do the work | Internet technologies replace 100 year dependency on telephone for real-time and primary communication |
A natural outcome of the historical progression of the electric power industry [explanation: text image] was the ongoing confrontations among surviving utilities (Hughes 1983, Hughes et al. 1987). These entities would geographically and metaphorically collide as a result of market pressures. These situations often resulted in a stalemate, since neither party could compromise or acquire their neighbor(s). The stalemate naturally evolved into collaboration and the interconnection of utilities. These "ties", or "interties" as they are called, are a major power grid development, which has both increased reliability and complexity simultaneously. Ties exist physically as large power lines crossing utility boundaries. The amounts and quality of electricity coming across these ties can vary. Conceptually and physically these create one large grid formalized as regions.
A utility's electric power generation and distribution activities were historically run by a small group of operators or dispatchers (because they allocate or dispatch grid resources) in the GDCC. These individuals usually possess years of service in other parts of the company. In their original capacity, operators usually start as lineman (electricians who handle the power cables), station operators (similar to the primary grid control center operators, but closer to the physical problems), or at some other job "in the field". The traditional utility personnel had their entire mindset focused on control with the ultimate goal being perfect reliability through cooperation.
The informants at the field site repeatedly emphasized that their grid is a real-time production and delivery system with no inventory or stored electricity. This point must not be forgotten. Data created by generation and transmission instantly becomes feedback, which is then used for additional production and transmission. Only the expected amount of energy to be consumed is scheduled for production. Industry conventions and standards regarding the acceptable variance to these calculations have changed due to deregulation and the introduction of an electricity market. The schedules are created by utilities based on estimates of customer usage (i.e. load). Forecasting is based on factors exhibiting a strong correlation with load such as previous hour and/or prior day at-same-hour consumption rates, seasonal historical data, and numerous weather reports. The predictions are a major component of power production. They facilitate the optimal configuration of resources resulting in the greatest profits within a set of constraints, but only during the most common operational situations.
There is not one, but three situations or "states" of production [explanation: text image] that exist within the field site, which must all be considered for security, reliability, and economic reasons. These separate production situations are similar in some respects, but function very differently depending on the implications of the given condition of the grid. Let the three states be referred to as: standard operating procedure, emergency, and abnormal. The production states are all addressed at some level by equipment and ICT. However, the role of ICT changes dramatically in certain state changes. The distinctions between these three situations call for the separate approaches and distinct actions that are socially constructed and evolved. These states and industry culture contribute strongly to GDCC group behavior and are based on expected normative actions when a state change occurs.
The current "generation" of GDCC operators and dispatchers has participated in social, organizational, and ICT developments they interpret as historically significant. An important characteristic of the electric power industry of the past was the free exchange of information, ideas, and intellectual knowledge. Operators could use personal knowledge about the other utilities to offset ambiguity when the operations are disrupted (e.g. blackout). This understanding is not a speculation by the operators, but rather first-hand observations. It was common to have operators take onsite tours of other grid control center facilities to exchange technical information. Those practices of information sharing have mostly changed as a result of policy changes.
GDCC teamwork and communications among the handful of dispatchers evolved to a fluid, nearly transparent, activity because it was needed in mission-critical operations. The intertie management process used at grid dispatch relied on three sources of data [explanation: text image] to monitor and control the grid. The tasks designated for computer support were expanded over time as the grid began to be considered a complete entity. Individual utilities began adopting ICT innovations into their specific operations, thus increasing their complementarities (i.e. via physical and computational interties). The unification of ICT and GDCC operations resulted from the pervasive nature of interorganizational dependencies:
Only when President Carter "unwittingly challenged the supremacy of utility elites" (Hirsh 1999) by signing into law the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) (Anon, undated) did the industry begin to suffer significant setbacks. Utilities consume power from several sources: steam-driven generators, hydroelectric plants, nuclear plants, wind generators, and across interties from other utilities with similar facilities. These various generation facilities obviously have different fuel requirements. When the law was enacted, the utilities were forced to consider a complicated algorithm that was computationally and data intensive, which could not have been utilized on the large scope and scale of the USA without using ICT. The resulting supply chain was not envisioned by anyone, and severely curtailed the utility's capabilities.
"These standards (of conduct) are designed to ensure that a public utility's employees (or any of its affiliates' employees) engaged in transmission system operations function independently of the public utility's employees (or any of its affiliates' employees) who are engaged in wholesale purchases and sales of electric energy in interstate commerce. Such separation is vital if we are to ensure that the utility does not use its access to information about transmission to unfairly benefit its own or its affiliates' sales."FERC's anti-collusion regulatory effort used new forms of ICT as the primary purpose of disrupting the established, streamlined industry ICT processes, an obvious attempt at political control through ICT (Kraemer and Kling 1985).
The role of ICT in radical deregulation was to complement the architectural repartitioning of utilities along generation-transmission-distribution lines. Deregulation intentionally altered organizational structure to reduce collusion among the utilities (OASIS NOPR 1996). Deregulators put their new industry architecture in place by prescribing ICT-facilitated processes that acted as new structural extensions to existing configurations, which allowed deregulators to break up vertically integrated organizations and separate internal utility marketing functions.
FERC (OASIS NOPR 1996) technologically deterministic actions using ICT were suggested by two working committees that were populated by industry, public, and marketing personnel. The groups were named the "What" and "How" working groups (OASIS "What" 1995; OASIS "How" 1996). Information systems analysis, software engineering, and requirements engineering have utilized the "what versus how" metaphor for years. The coincidence is too strong. Therefore, the regulatory process has taken on a distinctly ICT architectural design and developmental flavor as regulators mandate the societal adoption of ICT as a change agent with a distinctly rational predilection. FERC went so far as to include ICT design and implementation specifications in its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR).
Forcing the utilities to reorganize their internal personnel and finely tuned ICT-complemented processes destabilized the routinized work (Kling and Iacono 1989). The reorganizing weakened the effects of technologically enhanced ecology resulting from ICT integration during prior evolution. The deregulation eroded the old functioning ICT model and "de-tuned" grid operations.
Field site informants correctly foresaw that policy makers would have to revoke some of the changes. However, the majority of informants felt that the industry would architecturally evolve into a drastically different structure from the old configuration. They rightfully expected the current evolutionary process that is due mostly to high-profile events such as the collapse of California's electric power market and the 2003 Northeast blackout, both of which are attributable to a great degree to ICT. Their insights alone demonstrate the value of empirical study.
How did such a stable and conventional industry allow its service reliability -- the mantra of the utilities -- to be eroded by the opinions of the uninformed? The answer lies in the seductive nature of ICT and technologically determined value system; i.e. the industry's "can do" mentality. The misconception that ICT is deterministic led the policy makers to become system architects to go beyond safe boundaries in an effort to further optimize systems. Pro-restructuring lobbyists rarely enumerate the social ramifications of ICT adoption. The next section expounds on these reciprocal socio-structural relationships.
When schedules were in paper form the telephone infrastructure complemented the scheduling process; as volume increased, spreadsheets were used to complement the scheduling process. The Internet replaced the telephone as the primary communication device. This seemingly benign architectural shift of focus consolidated information and communication into one technological medium, effectively transferring one of the primary inter-infrastructural dependencies (i.e. electric power on telecommunications) to a dependency on ICT. However, when viewed through the lens of web models, the system analyst understands that events that include ecology, history, infrastructure, and massive architectural reconfigurations are never benign.
Schedules have significant weight in the organizational culture and are similar to the "genre" concept, which is typified communicative action in response to a recurring situation (Yates 1989, Yates and Orlikowski 1992, Yates et al. 1995). Having access to the schedule, or being excluded from its ongoing evolution, was closely associated with legitimate power structures. The critical nature of schedules is demonstrated by their pivotal role in deregulation.
The schedules were a primary target of entities such as Enron (an external "marketer") who sought to break into the electricity "wheeling" market ("wheeling" is the process of moving electric power from a point of generation across one or more utility-owned transmission and distribution systems to a retail customer) created by intertie technology and utility collaboration. The schedules were viewed as a chit one needed to enter the wheeling game. This supposed exclusivity was the premise for the deregulation argument put forward by the "marketers".
The marketers' position fostered a belief that deregulation would work and was essentially a "computerized movement" [explanation: text image] (Iacono and Kling 1996). They contended that the spreadsheet-based schedules could easily be moved into an Internet medium, facilitating the creation of a transmission market. The resulting FERC mandate (OASIS NOPR 1996) separated internal utility marketers in line with this movement.
The fine-tuning of schedules must be coordinated because the industry's control centers operate on a customized hourly basis [explanation: text image]. The GDCC marketer purchases or sells power based on importance to the industry and utility, respectively:
Proponents of deregulation argued in favor of Internet-as-tool to re-architect the industry, thus completely ignoring the underlying social aspects. Experts in electric power domain effectively argued for a technologically driven deregulation solution in spite of obvious historical evidence (Hughes 1983, Hughes et al. 1987, Hirsh 1989, Hughes 1992, Hirsh 1999) that actors are not rational and technological determinism cannot capture the complexity of mission-critical infrastructural ecologies.
A purely technological version of reverse salients (Hughes et al. 1987) could explain the evolution of the electric power industry if technological determinism were correct. But then how could that deterministic model explain why other societies address reverse salients in different ways. Specifically, many first, second, and third world countries have a very different approach to electric power generation, distribution, and transmission even though they have had access to the same technology as the USA. One social explanation of the phenomena may be that it correlates with differing distributions of traditional religions, or religions surrounding technology itself (Nobel 1997).
There are numerous complex, individual psychological dependencies on the skyscraper architecture, e.g. aesthetic, self-actualization, security, etc. Skyscrapers are socially justified in many ways (e.g. urban planning constraints). It would be generally unthinkable for many architectural firms to abandon skyscrapers for architectural, economic, and socio-cultural reasons. We could no more revert to mud huts than a spider could revert to survival without sophisticated webs.
The point is, when one dominates the ecology the result is a certain psychological dependency on the technology facilitating the control. How many of us could stand to use personal computers if we had to regress to a command line prompt, no connectivity, and Intel 8086 processor? We have grown accustomed to flexibility and connectivity, which are means of controlling our ecology.
The electric power industry, regulators, and the consuming public have a psychological dependency on electricity that did not exist 150 years ago. The creation and spread of electricity has been complemented by the emergence and growth of ICT, which maintains the cohesive connection extending from the electric power utilities' control centers over thousands of square miles of wire, switches, generators, and people. This control has allowed the vertical integration, dynamic grid configurations, and economic dispatch of electricity. Electric power organizations are finely tuned to behavioral shifts of the public and policymakers and, for the most part, are themselves tightly knit in an inextricable social web (Kling and Scacchi 1982, Kling 1992).
The shared mindset in the USA is that ICT could fix the grid's problems after each major blackout. ICT automation was built into system components as fail-safe measures to counteract major grid blackouts such as occurred in 1965 and 1977 (Ellis 2003). The lack of tolerance for even nominal electricity disruptions in the USA (when compared to the past or other modern countries) may indicate a deeper evolving psychological dependency influenced by ICT. This psychological dependency on technology was echoed again shortly after the 2003 Northeast Blackout (Ellis 2003) when the public and policy makers expressed the irrational belief that the grid could be manipulated at will, regardless of its socio-technical architecture.
This mentality cultivated regulatory changes in the latter portion of the 20th century that ultimately lead to the deregulation measures of the 1990s, which have failed for numerous reasons (Hogan 1993, Hogan 1994, Hogan 1995, Navarro 1996, Oren 1997). Instead, ICT-complemented market economy has fostered unreliability and high prices. However, the commitment by policy makers to use ICT because it was not at fault has not wavered. This belief flies in the face of empirical data [explanation: text image].
The computerization movement (Iacono and Kling 1996) started by "Marketers" largely succeeded in convincing the policy makers and public because of deep-seated general psychological beliefs about technology and specific dependencies on ICT. Their lobbying efforts culminated with the OASIS NOPR (1996). The utilities in many states are now divided. The schedules have subsequently largely been moved to the Internet through the implementation of OASIS Web sites. This development has resulted in effectively changing the interactions between most utility personnel.
ICT-complemented deregulation could and, therefore, did result in further collusion, but not necessarily by the utilities it targeted. Enron, one of the major proponents of computerization, was able to drive the California electric power market based on its insider knowledge of industry ICT (Kamp 2002) and its organizational predisposition to cross legitimate business boundaries. Enron did not discover a new technology the utility personnel were unaware of, but they did discover how to manipulate the socio-technical ontology of the ecology; something technological determinists refuse to acknowledge.
FERC must rely on electric power industry experts who, in turn, must seek out ICT experts. However, because they shared the same technological belief system and neglected the relationships one can find using web models, their combined expectations were unfounded and led to an architecture fraught with reliability, security, and other design flaws.
History, as Kling points out, is relevant for systems analysts. The electric power industry is not an exception. The interactions between government and electric power industry reflect a similar technological movement -- electrification -- from the early to mid 20th century when regulators wanted to maintain just enough control to retain legitimacy while simultaneously riding the wave of positive public opinion (Hirsh 1999). However, industry and deregulator technological determinists have discovered:
Process innovation naturally led to ICT dependence in both SOP and technological configuration. Evolution arising from process innovation can be more thoroughly understood when architectural aspects of the complex system are drawn out in order to highlight critical "weight bearing" relationships, which are usually tightly coupled with social mechanisms.
Knowledge workers who have their work processes complemented by technology would seem to be vulnerable to replacement by ICT. However, as seen here with intertie schedules moving from a paper to spreadsheet and then to the Internet, each evolutionary step created new social dependencies that complemented some group of stakeholders.
The new ICT complementariness weakens the old regime (the vertically integrated utility) and strengthens a new one (the "Marketers") for a period. However, inherent in the architectural design are social factors not easily transferred to new structures, especially if they are not expressly sought out. The new marketers had an incredible attrition rate (undocumented estimates go as high as 90%). Also, as noted earlier, supposed utility collusion was replaced by actual "Marketer" collusion (Kamp 2002).
The failure of deregulation was not news to the informants at GDCC who knew the system's dependencies and complementariness. They said: "in 2000 or 2001 everything will fall apart and they'll have to reregulate". In other words, the deregulator's architectural design will collapse when the full weight of the system is placed on the load-bearing beams. They could make such assertions because they knew the industry's shared social network and ontology carried the real system load and not ICT; contrary to what "Marketers" and deregulators supposed.
The added architectural correlations of the web model allow system analysts to view these rich dependencies and complementariness as social relationships across the panorama of mission-critical urban infrastructure using domain knowledge obtained from the ecology's "master builders". Architectural analysis provides a clear mechanism for associating resources and social processes. The spider metaphor serves to demonstrate how seemingly simple architectures that work incredibly well are attained through complex knowledge management and evolution based on ecological constraints. These constructs are meant to augment, and not replace, web models.
ICT is, therefore, a fickle change agent or malleable construction material demonstrating conflicted behavior dependent on the ecology and social network supporting it. Deregulation leveraging ICT did not result in less expensive energy or more reliable service. When policies, based on rational models of technological determinism, are directed at environments whose operations are already positively enhanced by ICT through social constructs the effects can backfire, i.e. reducing process quality and weakening ICT effectiveness. These dependencies and the loss of these former complementarities result in organizational and group instability, which exacerbates problems during evolution.
ICT architectures used in the future must exceed those technologies of the vertically integrated utility era in order for personnel to reestablish the social coherence that facilitated the old GDCC operations. Current deregulation processes ongoing in Washington, DC, and at state capitals must facilitate new architecturally modified control over the electric power ecology (e.g. the grid and GDCC) in order for industry personnel to have a shared positive reaction to their new "space". Without such universal perceptions, policy makers are unlikely to gather support for their efforts.
Unfortunately, this cycle feeds into the dependencies that already exist. As the "reregulation" foretold by the GDCC informants begins, policy makers are once again likely to depend on ICT as the sculpting tool of choice to mold the next iteration of the evolving electric power industry. But will they again fail? Will positive belief systems in ICT again shape the minds and attitudes of the stakeholders so strongly that "What" and "How" committees will influence all decisions such that the design revolves around perceived levels of ICT-augmented effectiveness? They are likely to unless policy makers take a position that urban infrastructure forms technological regimes, which are inherently social constructs regardless of engineering perspectives.
Kling (1992) pointed out that the "computing infrastructure" depends on technological resources, including electricity. He asserted that infrastructure would often be regarded as inferior or would be ignored without developing an appropriate "Natural Systems model" using a web analysis. People with key control over knowledge and information use innovations to drive their agendas within social, organizational, and institutional constructs. Only by tying together complicated empirical studies can researchers tease apart intricate interactions and socially constructed schemas that facilitate the objectives of some and forestall the success of others.
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