A District Heating Socio-Technical System Approaching the Energy Transition

Abstract

This chapter describes the results of a sociological investigation carried out within an EU-funded project. The project was aimed at creating a tool to visualise and compute energy data at an urban district level, with the broader aim to optimise the local district heating (DH) network's distribution policies. This chapter identifies the features of the main categories of actors (from the DH operator to final users) having a role within that network. Special attention is paid to the identification of the barriers and frictions preventing a stronger collaboration and communication among these actors to happen. It is argued that the identification and resolution, in situated and complex socio-technical systems, of these non-strictly-technical problems may be, at least in some cases, a pre-requisite for any ICT-based solution to deploy its full potential.