Abstract
The notion of “sociotechnical” is an important concept for interdisciplinary research on the transformation of the energy supply. Different branches of research agree that the provision, transmission, and distribution of energy are not simply a matter of physics. The transformation of the energy infrastructure is significantly a societal project, carried by technical innovation and social change. However, in social science and humanities research the interrelation between technical and social processes is often not explicitly explored, even though the interrelationship is the decisive descriptor that distinguishes sociotechnical entities from their environment. This article examines the merits of enriching the concept of sociotechnical by adding the distinction between tight and loose couplings in technical operations and human activities. While tight couplings are necessary to sustain control, they hamper change, and while loose couplings are necessary to adapt and to uphold choice, they increase complexity. Additionally, the article concludes that the introduction of “smart” technologies—an essential vision of the energy transformation—changes the composition of tight and loose couplings. Technical ideas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence go beyond mere automation. We might as well face a new sociotechnical reality. The introduction of intelligence in systems makes more loose couplings necessary. Paradoxically, this allows for new functionality and services by establishing complex operations while at the same time diminishing control by social systems.
Highlights
In recent years, the phenomenon of the energy transition has become a focal point for social science and humanities (SSH) research.1 Such transitions concern societal systems and large infrastructures, including processes where technical and nontechnical developments interact
− In order to investigate the importance of designating systems, networks, or constellations as being sociotechnical, the above elaborated arguments present us with the guiding distinction: the operationalization of sociotechnical entities emerges as a hybrid construction of simultaneously tightly coupled contingency eliminating deterministic occurrences and loosely coupled, contingency evoking, nondeterministic occurrences with a capacity to absorb uncertainty and sustain flexibility in social action and decision making
Stimuli for change are attributed in the literature to different factors, such as technological innovation born out of problem-solving inventions, or organizational or institutional innovation co-evolving with the growth of systems, as well as actual or anticipated changes in the environment challenging the basic premises of the reproduction, sustainment, and viability of the system
Summary
This article examines the merits of enriching the concept of sociotechnical by adding the distinction between tight and loose couplings in technical operations and human activities. The article concludes that the introduction of “smart” technologies—an essential vision of the energy transformation—changes the composition of tight and loose couplings. Technical ideas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence go beyond mere automation. The introduction of intelligence in systems makes more loose couplings necessary. This allows for new functionality and services by establishing complex operations while at the same time diminishing control by social systems
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