|
1
Introduction
1.1
Enabling socially constructed deregulation with ICT
Over the past 50 years, a broad and increasing dependence on technology
has given rise to a concomitant dependence on Information and
Communication Technology (ICT). As social dependency on technology has
increased, attitudes in society and policy have evolved toward
technology in general with ICT positioned as the agent of change. Thus,
system analysis and design is inherently contextualized in a framework
of expectations, and further, the evolution of social norms and
expectations is influenced by the technology itself as users, workers,
and policy makers evolve with ICT systems. This research examines how
ICT compliments general technological dependencies to determine
evolution in mission-critical infrastructures (e.g., New York City's "urban
infrastructure" (Kling 1992)).
The operation of the electric
power "grid" has been complimented 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, 7 days a
week. However, deregulators physically and psychologically dismembered
the electric power culture using ICT. Therefore, as noted by Kling, 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 (Kling 1992).
The ICT enabled deregulation shifted attention to functional aspects
during the grid system design. The shift naturally emphasizes some
stakeholder assertions premised 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,
Gurbaxani et al. 1994) are likely an ineffective or incorrect
prescription for complex socio-technical ecologies like the electric
power industry.
1.2
The multifaceted role of ICT in deregulation
This research began as an attempt to understand the multidimensional
and contradictory constraints grid dispatch control center (GDCC)
system analysts were facing as a result of the radical deregulation
imposed in the 1990s (1996)
intended to optimize power industry operations through market making
mechanisms. How are analysts to factor in rapidly emerging and
contradictory deregulatory constraints arising from these state and
federal efforts? Without a clear understanding of the role of the ICT
infrastructure, system analysts fail to grasp essential socially
constructed aspects of ICT architectural designs. They lack a model to
articulate the complex of complementarities in a manner that would
improve their process or designs. Their limited perspective is
exacerbated by the industry's vertically integrated structure using a
central monopoly model that resulted in a highly cohesive social
fabric, ontology, and culture.
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:
- The electric power industry is presented as an evolving
complex of actors bound together by the physics of the electric power
grid.
- Stakeholders seek to manipulate their ecology.
- The architectural process can be leveraged as an analogy
to expound upon the actual complementarities between the grid system
and urban architecture (Kling
and Scacchi 1982; Kling 1992).
- Some structural, psychological, and social confounding
factors create complementarities and dependencies.
- Misconceptions regarding ICT enabled the failed
deregulation attempt.
- Kling was correct; i.e.,
- System analysts in mission-critical domains need to
broaden their scope to include social factors in order to cope with
ecological constraints arising from powerful and/or deviant actors.
- ICT has numerous multifaceted social dimensions that,
if ignored during the architecting of civilizations by policy-makers,
will result in unexpected permutations of both computational and social
structures, which are likely to become institutionalized.
2
Methods
Kling argued persuasively for empirical research (Kling 1978a; Kling and Scacchi
1982; Kling
1987; Kling
1992) and this research reflects his promptings. Kling noted the
need to examine the whole "package" that is "not only the hardware and
software facilities, but also a diverse set of skills, organizational
units and sets of beliefs about what computing is good for." from a
symbolic interactionist perspective within segmented institutionalism (Kling 1980).
This perspective is utilized to examine the interactions and emersion
the electric power industry has undergone since the advent of ICT.
2.1
The Web Model's natural association with architecture
Kling and Scacchi (Kling and Scacchi
1982) utilize web models as a metaphor to illustrate the web of
computing. Simmel's web metaphor (Simmel 1964) was adopted by
Scacchi as an effective means to view "computing in organizations as a
web of group affiliations" that sought "to identify, describe, and
interrelate the group affiliations that surround organizational
computing" (Scacchi
2004). Kling used the web model to
"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".
(Kling 1992) |
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. Recent research of 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.
- Spiders are very territorial (like geographically bounded
utilities) and "too anti-social to farm successfully" for their web
proteins (BBC 2000).
(We mean no negative connotation in these comparisons. The utility
personnel we observed/interviewed have very high moral and ethical
standards. Their primary focus is to maintain service for the public's
welfare.)
- According Dr. Hayashi
the spider's web
has amazing structural properties (Tenenbaum 2001 ). There
are seven types of silk a single spider may utilize as building
materials depending on the situation:
- A type for wrapping prey
- Another type for wrapping its eggs, and
- Five types to construct the web itself.
- Scientists and engineers are actively researching spider
silk, which is 25 times stronger than steel and has an amazing
elasticity (BBC 2000).
- However, "a process as complex as spider silk spinning has
never yet been replicated [emphasis added]. This formidable challenge
is now being tackled on three fronts. The genes coding for spider silk
are being sequenced, and researchers are trying to work out the
molecular architecture [emphasis added] of silk threads and the way
they are spun" (Magdalena 2001).
- The evolution of the spider has resulted in some embedded
structural processes reflecting very specific knowledge.
Analogously to the spiders' ability to create the complex from the
simple, utilities often utilize their evolved knowledge to combine
simplistic components into complex architectures. Architecture is a
confluence of art and technology to communicate
space and place (Giedion 1980). Spider webs
and electric power lines are ubiquitous in the US ecology, thereby
communicating their ever-present influence on the place we share. Both
spiders and electric power utilities evolve their architectural design
by finding new ways to apply existing "technology" to control their
place.
The spider proteins are complimentary in the design of a particular the
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. But,
there is yet another set of complimentary and reciprocal interactions
one can see in the analogy with "urban infrastructure".
2.2
ICT architectural processes in the Web model
Web models can be juxtaposed with architectural processes to gain
additional analytical leverage over complex ecologies, history, and ICT
infrastructure. Software processes are software too (Osterweil 1997), but
still leverage knowledge dynamically inferring a socio-technical
semi-structured process. Building architectural processes leverage the
architect's knowledge of the ecology and emerging technologies (Giedion 1980)
to create new design ideas within a very well established social
process including policy-making through zoning and building codes.
However, the actual architecture is brought to life using other human
resources who understand these social norms in conjunction with
technological resources that include ICT (e.g.,
AutoCAD). However, the combination of ICT processes and
architectural processes is not meant to infer a Parsonian framework (Parsons 1951),
but a socially adaptive and self-aware process.
Conventional building architects respond to new building materials or
processes by creating new building architecture designs using new
computer numerical controlled (MacKenzie and
Wajcman 1992) manufacturing that releases them from many of the
tradition 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, Glymph
et al. 2004). These new ICT tools emerged from a series of
joint social and technological interactions.
Dr. Michael Gorlick explained some far-reaching possibilities for "bucky tubes" (i.e.,
carbon nanotubes) by alluding to their amazing properties and how
the material could be used in the production of cars, roads, or
architectures during The
Workshop on Internet-scale Software Technologies (TWIST 2000).
Bucky tube elevators are not ordinary explained Dr. Gorlick's, but
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.
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. A conventional approach to these problems utilize 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 argues 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" (Hughes 1992),
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 complimenting ICT infrastructure.
Table 1: Corresponding aspects
in
architecture, spider web, and electric power
Built Architecture
|
Spider Web
|
Electric Power
|
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 |
2.3
Data collection using ethnographic techniques
Ethnography was also used because of its direct applicability to
interactionist-empiricist research (Kling 1980). Ethnographic
research techniques (Spradley 1989) (Emerson,
Fretz et al. 1995) were used to collect data at the Grid Dispatch
Control Center (GDCC)
through observation and in-depth semi-formal interviews.
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 compliments 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.
The ethnographer is a type of instrument who functions better as
observer if they are ignorant of ecological details; e.g., the richness
of a culture foreign is often brought out in more intricate detail
before observer "goes native". The computer infrastructure, rich
history, and ecological unity of the field site GDCC
were unfamiliar to the observer. Therefore, the staged engagement of
observation, casual conversations, and then semi-formal interviews
augment the augment the data collection.
2.3.1
Details of GDCC
field site research
One field site researcher conducted random interview data collection
from September 1996 to June 1997. Management was willing for the
research to be conducted without restrictions. GDCC
systems analysts were beset on every side with new and contradictory
constraints arising from internal and external stakeholders. The
GDCC conducted two 12-hour shifts everyday of the year. Each shift
had five operators and a supervisor with some additional floating
operators to cover for vacations, etc. All personnel on both shifts
were observed (including information system analyst meetings) and
engaged often in informal discussions. All supervisors, upper
management, information system analysts, and at least one individual
from each duty station
were semi-formally interviewed, which total 30 hours of taped
interviews. In addition, sporadic observations, conversations, and
interviews were conducted with operators acting in the marketing
function and support staff such as accountants or forecasters. Also,
when an event occurred (e.g. disturbance in the system causing a fault
alarm to be set off) the observer was allowed to stay in the
GDCC.
The observer over this extended interaction and analysis of industry
data such 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.
3
Historical and Social Context in Electric Power
The history of the electric power industry-the largest industry in the
US as of 1994 (Brennan 1996)-shows how
it has evolved through effective marketing, social factors, and
political maneuvers (Hughes 1983; Hughes,
Pinch et al. 1987; Cowan 1992; Hughes 1992;
Hirsh 1999).
3.1
Historical timeline and increasing ICT dependency
Table 2: General history of
ecology
expounded upon in Sections 3 and 4
Date
|
Event
|
Structural Analogy
|
ICT Dependency
|
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 line exhibiting behavior |
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 |
Increasing customer base with the associated need for significant
data collection and management
|
1973-1974 |
Oil embargo
by OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) |
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 and
airline industries |
Changing public, state and Federal opinion created
pressure to change structure |
ICT (e.g. airline's Sabre systems) seemed to enable
restructuring |
1990s |
Increasing technological collaboration of utilities;
e.g., 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 |
National
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 |
3.2
Short early history of electric power
Thomas Edison's holistic method of electric power innovation reflects
the "invention, innovation, and diffusion" process (King,
Gurbaxani et al. 1994). It was premised on a "systems approach" (Hughes 1983),
which extended to all artifacts and actors in their socioeconomic
context. Edison's chose to utilize technology to drive societal control
in a way that was consistent with his vision for radical change (Hughes 1983).
Edison and his Menlo Park team were driven, goal-oriented, and shrewd
businessmen for the most part (Hughes 1992). They were
able to apply technology with the right amount of marketing to advance
their agenda (Hughes
1983). Trained disciples
of Edison carried his message and corporations supported their agenda.
"Menlo Park, Edison's research and development institution, was only an
aspect of the beginning of the great transformation brought about by
the large-scale, systematic harnessing of science and technology to
corporate objectives (Nobel 1977)" (MacKenzie
and Wajcman 1992).
3.2.1
Industry evolved through technological dependencies
Standards and protocols for interactions and exchange of electricity
were needed as larger utilities made alliances (David and
Rothwell 1996). This fact is due to the physical properties of
electricity, which travels towards the path of least resistance,
thereby instantaneously equalizing or balancing all utilities at the
same frequency (i.e., the number of cycles per second). The industry in
the US gravitated toward the 60-hertz standard as the industry picked
up "technological momentum" (Hughes 1983;
Hughes, Pinch et al. 1987). This choice, as one informant pointed
out, subtly drew the industry into developing enormous and extremely
expensive generation facilities that were locked into a narrow range
around 60 hertz. This approach created a path dependency (David 1985) having extreme
implications on today's grid if poor frequency developed.
A natural outcome of the historical progression of the
electric power industry was the ongoing confrontations among surviving
utilities (Hughes
1983; Hughes, Pinch
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. They conceptually and physically create one
large grid formalized as regions.
The 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 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 perfectly reliability through
cooperation.
3.4
Initiation of deregulation in pre-1990's
The evolution of the system since the Public Utility Holding Company
Act of 1935 had been toward stability. The electric power industry's
argument for their classification as a natural monopoly had been
effective. Natural monopoly status gave them a great advantage as they
pressed forward in their attempts to control their reward system (Hughes,
Pinch et al. 1987). The Public Utility Holding Company Act and a
50-year-old tradition among utilities naturally led to further vertical
integration. However, the vertically integrated utility had a major
problem: command and control of huge inventories of assets used for the
simultaneous generation-transmission-delivery of electricity over
geography did not facilitate real-time collaboration activities.
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 in order
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.
- The number of interties increasing causing the following
second level effects:
- Intertie management became convoluted and
interdependent
- Need arose to monitor important interorganizational
connections
- Temporal management of intertie information was
necessary
- The industry's "ramp-time" concept has evolved as an
integral part of interorganizational interactions.
- Contractual agreements were more common because of ICT
accounting practices
- Regulatory pressures to physically and philosophically
unite the various independent utilities
The organizational emphasis on the ICT
managed interties grew over several decades. This focus was a
natural progression because the utilities were able to accelerate their
existing management/political plans (Kling 1978a;
Kling and Iacono 1984; Kling 1987) of vertical
integration. Modern substations that were originally run by operators
were incrementally enhanced with ICT until they were fully automated (Kling 1978a; Kling 1978b).
The logical result (George and
King 1991) was a completely centralized control paradigm reflecting
a conscious evolution toward vertical integration legitimized by public
opinion.
Only when President Carter "unwittingly challenged the supremacy of
utility elites" (Hirsh 1999) by signing
into law the Public
Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA)
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 a large scope and scale of the US
without utilizing ICT. The resulting supply chain was not envisioned by
anyone, and severely curtailed the utility's capabilities.
3.5
ICT Enabled Deregulation in the 1990's
The
FERC mandated deregulation in Order No. 888 and 889 (1996) after the Congress
passed the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Their deregulation is predicated
on ICT as a change agent, thus dramatically changing the centrality of
ICT to the whole electric power regime. The changes
FERC mandated had numerous consequences at the state and local
government levels. There were very specific changes required in the way
power industry organizations were to restructure and conduct business
in the future. One significant ruling by
FERC was that
marketing individuals could have no physical or communicative
contact with individuals who had knowledge of transmission capacity.
FERC's anti-collusion
regulatory effort used new forms of ICT as the primary purpose of
disrupting the established industry ICT streamlined processes, which is
an obvious attempt at political control through ICT (Kraemer and
Kling 1985).
The ICT role in radical deregulation was to compliment the
architectural repartitioning of utilities along
generation-transmission-distribution lines. Deregulation intentionally
altered utility organizational structure to reduce collusion among the
utilities (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 out internal
utility marketing functions.
FERC
(1996) technologically
deterministic actions using ICT were suggested by two working
committees that were populated by industry, public, and marketer
personnel. The groups were named the "What" and "How" groups (What 1995; 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 then
taken on a distinctly ICT architectural design and developmental flavor
as regulators mandate the societal adoption of ICT as change agent with
a distinctly rational predilection.
FERC went so far as to include ICT design and implementation
specifications in their NOPR.
3.5.1
Using ICT to disrupt institutions
The stable operations of the GDCC
had become institutionalized because the numerous constraints
associated with the process (Kling and Iacono
1989). A disruptive element was interjected by:
- Outlawing face-to-face communication between previous
coworkers
- Mandating new ICT communication mediums such as dependence
on the Internet
- Highly structured forms of ICT interaction.
These policy changes forced open communication gaps using
OASIS Internet sites where non-utility third party marketers could
then enter and participate. This activity created a billion dollar
market economy based on the separation of generation and transmission
as a bundled product. The mandated usage of ICT by
FERC and State Governments are actions accurately described an
"Innovation Directive". In this case, the innovation directive appeared
to work at the beginning, but actually created more problems.
Forcing the utilities to reorganize their internal personnel and finely
tuned ICT complimented processes caused a destabilization of 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 evolve into architecture drastically different
than 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, which are both 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
their 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 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.
4
An ICT story of complementarities
4.1
Structural dependencies
An electric power utility's plant and equipment, scheduling, and human
resources have always been tightly coupled over the last 50
years. These three resources are connected to other utilities
through multiple channels such as:
- Interties: the architectural couplers for the grid that
physically unite utilities
- Schedules:
interorganizational agreements pertaining to interties
- Marketers: manage the creation and evolution of schedules
- Old regime: they were GDCC
operators who are experts in asset scheduling through the purchase and
sale of electric power generation bundled with transmission
- New deregulated regime: focal point of deregulation
efforts to separate out transmission and the associated organizational
actors
The interplay of these resources demonstrates the web model
architectural aspects during evolution of this industry. The schedules
were the architecturally weak link of the interorganizational
collaborative effort to operate. As time passed the consumer population
and demand grew, distribution networks became dense and long distance
high-voltage transmission lines became more critical to meet demand.
When schedules were in paper form the telephone infrastructure
complimented the scheduling process, but as volume increased
spreadsheets were utilized to compliment the scheduling process.
The Internet replaced the telephone's 100 reign as 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 there
are never benign events that include ecology, history, infrastructure,
and massive architectural reconfigurations.
4.1.1
Utilities' undermined by their dependence ICT complementarities
The use of schedules as a key communication artifact is closely tied to
the organization's dependency on ICT to enhance mission critical data.
These dependencies are reciprocal.
Economic dispatch of the grid without disruptions is mainly premised on
dependable schedules, which needed to be in place prior to each
business day cycle. Sometimes
marketers would have to work late into the night to work out
interorganizational inconsistencies. All agreements to purchase or sell
energy coupled with transmission were based on the needs and/or
additional capacity of their respective utilities.
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,
Orlikowski 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 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 deregulation would work and
was essentially a "computerized
movement" (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 (1996)
separated internal utility marketers in line with this movement.
4.1.2
Collusion or social fabric? A deeper look at schedules
ICT facilitated electric power industry evolution by making complex
collaboration possible because it lowered the barrier to effective
communication. The entire industry is collaboratively operating the
grid-a synchronous machine-to deliver product traveling at light speed.
Historically, marketers scheduled energy consumption for months, weeks,
days, and hours in advance.
The fine-tuning of schedules must be coordinated because the industry's
control centers operate on a customized hourly basis. The GDCC
marketer purchases or sells power based on importance to the industry
and utility, respectively:
- Reliability concerns stated by the GDCC
operators
- Economical concerns as the marketer understands them
This utilization of verbal agreements was an integral aspect of the
historical energy marketing function. The utility marketers'
predictions are based on:
- Historical data
- Knowledge of current production capacities
- Government regulations
- Market forces
- Legacy ICT with embedded policy structured algorithms
An interesting characteristic of marketers was their ability to "read"
their counterparts in other organizations in order to gain an
advantage-like in a game
of poker-as this quotation infers. Often times, these individuals
had close friendships because of the tightly knit community and
academic-like sharing of knowledge prior to deregulation. After
completing their predictions, the marketers would verbally arrange a
transaction for the purchase and transmission of the energy between
utilities. The constant interactions between marketers from differing
utilities via technologies such as the telephone and fax machines was
complimented by ICT prior to deregulation. The shared
utility ontology was the framework for social interactions. The ICT
infrastructural role was more than a technological solution, it created
dependencies in the existing social network.
4.2
Psychological dependency on control technologies
There exists a psychological dependency on successful technology, which
often times prohibits society from reverting to an older
socio-technical paradigm. The architecture of the grid is not only a
result of technological factors, but of social arrangements. The
continued utilization of rational actors and discrete-entity models (Kling 1992)
reveals psychological aspects of the electric power industry's
evolution through deregulation.
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, Pinch 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, Pinch
et al. 1987) could explain the electric power industry evolution 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 US. One social explanation of the
phenomena may be that it correlates to 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 complimented by
the emergence and growth of ICT. ICT maintains the cohesive connection
extending out 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
together in an inextricable social web (Kling and Scacchi
1982; Kling
1992).
The shared mindset in the US 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 US (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, the ICT complimented 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.
4.3
Socially confounding factors that defy normal analysis
The empirical data from this study indicates conventional rational,
political, managerial, or institutional models would fail to capture
all of the important nuances associated with ICT. The dependency relationship
between the public, electric power industry, and ICT are complimentary
in ways not easily explained. Though massive power outages are rare,
when they do occur the resulting criticisms in the media and government
have become increasingly sharp.
4.3.1
Behavioral expectations based on trust in ICT
The US public has two primary irrational expectations regarding
electric power:
- No power outages-ever
- Absurdly inexpensive energy
The electric power industry has somewhat successfully addressed the
first expectation with numerous redundant computer systems (Ellis 2003). In
order to address the second, legislators have forced the electric power
industry deregulation due to the arguments of special interest groups
and economists. Informants at GDCC
shared:
- They felt deregulation was the result of erroneous
accusations by special interest groups such as the Marketers
- The reduction of costs through organizational
reengineering processes (such as BPR
(Hammer
and Champy 1993)) using ICT was a myth (Davenport
and Stoddard 1994) because the process could not be improved enough
to justify deregulation
- The economic concerns for them were always secondary to
reliability concerns forming the industry's collective shared
consciousness or ontology
The behavioral miscalculations are not unidirectional. The industry is
equally dependent on ICT as the public and policy makers. The utilities
incorrectly analyzed the other stakeholders' dependency on energy. The
industry incorrectly counted on the US dependency on reliable energy to
swing public and policy maker opinion their way because of the rapidly
changing perspective on ICT (e.g., Internet usage), which would help
their case. Therefore, their total combined rising expectations on ICT
were tightly coupled to expectations of extended ICT benefits resulting
in further dependency. Fuel price economics and public pressure over
environmental issues are just two other main issues major forces
pressing upon the utilities.
5
Discussion
5.1
Advent of ICT Driven Deregulation
Strong lobbyists raised public and policy-maker expectations by
focusing on evolutionary possibilities of coupling ICT augmented
GDCC processes with the Internet infrastructure. During the 20
years leading up to the 1990s, electric power utilities successfully:
- Leveraged ICT
- Used cutting edge technology for their operations
- Implemented production and optimization schemes
- Coordinated their strategic and interorganizational
efforts
- Cultivated a strong sense of community to socially attack
problems.
Unfortunately for the electric power industry, their effective use of
technologies like ICT raised the awareness of pivotal stakeholders
(such as external Marketing organizations, the government, and the
public) to the economic possibilities through deregulation.
5.1.1
Monopoly merger and acquisition == Deregulation
Marketers entering the electricity industry hoped to generate large
profits using the existing ICT infrastructure to manipulate integral
and complex grid interconnections. The merger and acquisition style of
Marketers such as Enron emerged in ICT architecturally specific
regulations expressly aimed at organizational reconfiguration. The
possibilities bound up with the electric power industry's use of ICT
when complimented by Internet accessibility opportunities resulted in a
change agent that set political forces into motion resulting in the
deregulation efforts.
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
FERC NOPR
(1996). The utilities
in many states are now divided. The schedules have subsequently been
largely moved to the Internet medium through the implementation of
OASIS Web sites. This development has resulted in effectively
changing the interactions between most utility personnel.
5.1.2
The failed deregulation
Long-standing industry processes conflicted with the prescribed
deregulated processes and subsequently raised intra- and
interorganizational tensions, which contributed to the failure of
deregulation (Hogan
1993; Hogan
1994; Hogan
1995;
Navarro 1996; Oren 1997; Hirsh 1999).
OASIS proponents did not foresee many of the social nuances of ICT
utilization that would emerge after deregulation had begun.
Specifically, informants at the field site described situations wherein
generators were using the inadequacies of
OASIS Web sites to "game" the system. These tactics are similar to
those described in (DeMarco,
Sariashkar et al. 1996).
The ICT complimented deregulation could and, therefore, did result in
further collusion, but not necessarily by the utilities it targeted.
Enron, one of the major computerization movement proponents, was able
to drive the California electric power market based on their insider
knowledge of industry ICT (Kamp 2002) and their
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.
5.1.3
If they only would have listened.
Technological determinists, in the electric power industry, regulatory
agencies, and governments, have made some hard and fast assertions
about various aspects of the GDCC
ecology and ICT infrastructure, which were codified in
FERC NOPR
888/889. The use of the "What" and "How" (What 1995; How 1996) advisory groups
aligns with traditional software industry practice, demonstrating the
centrality of ICT to the whole electric power regime.
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:
- Increasing the decentralized control of markets using ICT
has created numerous unexpected behaviors among individuals and
organizations
- Public opinion has quickly shifted away from deregulation
after blackouts and higher prices
- Expected levels of accomplishment by new ICT will be
disappointing because essential problems of design (Brooks 1995) are unlikely
to be solved for the current problems
- Deregulation has demonstrated a symbiotic relationship
wherein the complimentary technology (ICT) became the focus because of
market manipulation capabilities, thereby dramatically changing
architectural designs in the electric power industry technologies
6
Conclusion
6.1
Kling's assertions correct regardless of unbelievers
Complex ecologies such as the electric power industry have interwoven
relationships and multilayered dependencies that are cultivated between
historical technology and emerging ICT to empower ongoing public and
private social agendas. In contradiction to assertions by technological
determinists and naïve policy-makers, this research substantiates
Kling's position that technological regimes are inherently social
constructs. The implication is that the social aspects of urban
infrastructure often determine the structural configurations of
resources regardless of the engineering perspectives.
6.1.1
Importance of dependency and complementariness
Rich dependencies and complementariness between urban and ICT
infrastructure indicate Kling's insights were correct. Information
systems analysts working for vertically integrated monopolistic
utilities incrementally added ICT as part of GDCC
operations. Schedules were just one case where ICT was used to evolve
an artifact in order to compliment the utility's interorganizational
agenda. Over the history of electric power, when GDCC
knowledge workers fully appreciated newly augmented ICT processes they
would naturally evolve away from old SOP.
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 complimented by
technology would seem to make them vulnerable to replacement by ICT.
However, as seen here with intertie schedules moving from a paper-based
to spreadsheet and then to the Internet we observe each evolutionary
step created new social dependencies that complimented 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 is 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 new 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 web model's added architectural correlations 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 ecologies
"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.
6.2
ICT: friend or foe?
A software feature to one user can be a bug to a developer, or an open
door to the computer hacker. Such is the nature of ICT. Electric power
utilities came to rely on ICT to extend their control over resources.
As greater levels of control were attained and maintained over the
decades, utilities pushed for greater control. However, when our entire
society became enamored with the capabilities of ICT, regulators used
ICT as the tool to dismember the vertical utility giants-a double-edged
sword.
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, premised 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 weaken 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 vertical 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 of 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 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 pointed out (Kling
1992) that the "computing infrastructure" depends on a
technological resources including electricity. He asserted that
infrastructure would often be relegated to inferiority or ignored
without developing an appropriate "Natural Systems model" using a web
analysis. People with key control over knowledge and information
utilize 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.
7
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8
Glossary of Terms and Acronyms:
BPR |
Business
Process Reengineering |
Duty
Station |
[Click here]
|
ERPI |
Electric Power Research Institute |
FERC |
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission |
GDCC |
Grid Dispatch Control Center |
ICIS |
International Conference on Information Systems |
Load
Capacity |
[Click here] |
NOPR |
Notice of Proposed Rule-making |
OASIS |
Open Access Same-Time Information System |
PURPA |
Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act |
Ramp
Time |
[Click here] |
Schedules |
[Click here] |
SOP |
Standard
Operating Procedure |
Wheeling |
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. |
9
Acknowledgements
TBA
10
Author details
TBA
|