17 Energy Efficiency Within Sustainable Development in Asia …
261
17.4.2 The Technical and Economic Dimensions
One disadvantage of its legacy is that energy auditing is still approached from the
problem-solving perspective of the 1970s using the approach of first-generation
methodologies, which is aptly expressed in (Rittel 1984), p 322 as “… you work with
your client to understand the problem; then you withdraw and work out a solution;
then you come back to the client and offer it to him, and often run into implementation
problems because he doesn’t believe you.” The main reasons, among others, behind
this unfortunate situation are, as explained in (Rittel 1984), that the deontic judgments and perspectives used to frame a problem and create the solution remain mostly
hidden from the client. Also people seem to be more receptive to a solution when
they have been involved in its generation. A more adequate approach to problemsolving in actual practice is to exploit the symmetry of ignorance (cf. (Rittel 1984)),
that is try to synthesize different perspectives of a problem and generate possible
solutions, rather than just one solution, so that the solutions represent an informed
compromise among all the conflicting requirements and interests of multiple stakeholders. To make this effective, domain knowledge, interests, and the concerns of
those who are the owners of the problem and those who are contracted from outside
to contribute to the solution all need to be considered, and the parties need to collaborate and share their perspectives and expertise. In the given context, this requires
that energy auditing and knowledge related processes such as information transfer,
knowledge exchange, and sharing of perspectives are supported by objects and structures that help transcend related syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries (see
again, for example (Carlile 2002)). One promising approach in this direction is seen
as restructuring and replenishing the process of energy auditing and its documented
outcome, the energy auditing report, with a system of boundary objects, which in
turn supports the development not only of a shared language and meaning but also
common concerns and interests. Here, a straightforward and natural way is to employ
a well-structured form of the concept of energy service. Note that this energy service
concept, as discussed in the following in regard to boundary objects, should not be
confused with the energy audit that by itself is also considered a kind of energy
service, and which is provided by energy service companies as discussed earlier.
Unfortunately, energy service is still a concept that is defined and used in various,
not always consistent, ways, but which was rarely referred to until the 1990s (cf.
(Fell 2017)). In particular there is still a wide gap between conceptualizations in
the technological and economic field and those in the socio-psychological fields. In
the technological and economic field, industrial and commercial energy services are
in many cases explicitly linked to electrical, mechanical, and bio-chemical applications along with residential heating and lighting, and public transport. By contrast,
in socio-psychological fields, the dominant focus of energy service related studies is
aspects of human well-being, welfare, and living conditions, sometimes to the extent
that industrial and commercial aspects are entirely omitted (see also discussions, for
example in (Morley 2018; Kalt et al. 2019)).
261
17.4.2 The Technical and Economic Dimensions
One disadvantage of its legacy is that energy auditing is still approached from the
problem-solving perspective of the 1970s using the approach of first-generation
methodologies, which is aptly expressed in (Rittel 1984), p 322 as “… you work with
your client to understand the problem; then you withdraw and work out a solution;
then you come back to the client and offer it to him, and often run into implementation
problems because he doesn’t believe you.” The main reasons, among others, behind
this unfortunate situation are, as explained in (Rittel 1984), that the deontic judgments and perspectives used to frame a problem and create the solution remain mostly
hidden from the client. Also people seem to be more receptive to a solution when
they have been involved in its generation. A more adequate approach to problemsolving in actual practice is to exploit the symmetry of ignorance (cf. (Rittel 1984)),
that is try to synthesize different perspectives of a problem and generate possible
solutions, rather than just one solution, so that the solutions represent an informed
compromise among all the conflicting requirements and interests of multiple stakeholders. To make this effective, domain knowledge, interests, and the concerns of
those who are the owners of the problem and those who are contracted from outside
to contribute to the solution all need to be considered, and the parties need to collaborate and share their perspectives and expertise. In the given context, this requires
that energy auditing and knowledge related processes such as information transfer,
knowledge exchange, and sharing of perspectives are supported by objects and structures that help transcend related syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic boundaries (see
again, for example (Carlile 2002)). One promising approach in this direction is seen
as restructuring and replenishing the process of energy auditing and its documented
outcome, the energy auditing report, with a system of boundary objects, which in
turn supports the development not only of a shared language and meaning but also
common concerns and interests. Here, a straightforward and natural way is to employ
a well-structured form of the concept of energy service. Note that this energy service
concept, as discussed in the following in regard to boundary objects, should not be
confused with the energy audit that by itself is also considered a kind of energy
service, and which is provided by energy service companies as discussed earlier.
Unfortunately, energy service is still a concept that is defined and used in various,
not always consistent, ways, but which was rarely referred to until the 1990s (cf.
(Fell 2017)). In particular there is still a wide gap between conceptualizations in
the technological and economic field and those in the socio-psychological fields. In
the technological and economic field, industrial and commercial energy services are
in many cases explicitly linked to electrical, mechanical, and bio-chemical applications along with residential heating and lighting, and public transport. By contrast,
in socio-psychological fields, the dominant focus of energy service related studies is
aspects of human well-being, welfare, and living conditions, sometimes to the extent
that industrial and commercial aspects are entirely omitted (see also discussions, for
example in (Morley 2018; Kalt et al. 2019)).