ICT and the Deregulation of the Electric Power Industry:A Story of an Architect's New ToolRobb Klashner
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Abstract:
1 Introduction1.1 Enabling socially constructed deregulation with ICTOver 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 deregulationThis 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.
2 MethodsKling 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 architectureKling 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
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.
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 modelWeb 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
2.3 Data collection using ethnographic techniquesEthnography 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 researchOne 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 PowerThe ethnographic interaction with the informants was essential to the study because of the glut of historical and current data available in electric power industry. For example, entire libraries have been established to honor Thomas Edison’s work. The informants provided the guidance necessary to closely examine certain aspects of their domain. They did not knowingly do this as a guide would, but the guidance emerged through the ethnographic process. As each informant painted their worldview of the electric power industry, new correlations emerged between seeming innocuous events, technologies, people, organizations, policies, or other miscellaneous 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 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. 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 1989). 3.1 Historical timeline and increasing ICT dependencyTable 2: General history of ecology expounded upon in Sections 3 and 4
3.2 Short early history of electric powerThomas 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 dependenciesStandards 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. 3.3 Technical aspects of the grid center3.4 Initiation of deregulation in pre-1990'sThe 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 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'sThe 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" working 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 institutionsThe 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:
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.
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 complementarities4.1 Structural dependenciesAn 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:
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 complementaritiesThe 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 schedulesICT 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:
4.2 Psychological dependency on control technologiesThere 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 analysisThe 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 ICTThe US public has two primary irrational expectations regarding electric power:
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:
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 Discussion5.1 Advent of ICT Driven DeregulationStrong 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:
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 == DeregulationMarketers 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 deregulationLong-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:
6 Conclusion6.1
Kling's position validated despite critics
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. |
| 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. |
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){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}
){kind=link}