Renegotiating the Social Contract: The 'Demand-Side Management Revolution' and the Restructuring of the American Electric Utility Industry, l978-l992

赫什博士正在研究如何在电力公用事业公司和消费者之间形成一种新的共识，从而提高能源效率、降低客户成本、提高企业利润和改善环境质量。与20世纪70年代S时代存在的公用事业公司和客户之间的紧张关系不同，新的“社会契约”的核心是所谓的“需求侧管理”技术的日益复杂。需求侧管理是一种包罗万象的短语，它涵盖了节约措施和高效的最终使用技术，限制了客户对电力的需求，减少了公用事业公司建设发电厂的需要，同时也带来了所有环境节约。上世纪80年代末，维权团体、公用事业公司和其他参与者以一种承诺普遍奖励的新颖方式，利用电力需求侧管理技术达成了新的共识。赫什博士的研究重点是技术、监管、政治和管理方面的事件，这些事件已经结合在一起，在公用事业社区内创造了一种新的社会契约。赫什利用口述历史和文献资料，扩展了对公用事业行业重组的研究，这些重组是1970年的S和1980年的S的技术和监管创新导致的。赫什的目标是将公用事业行业自1970年代的S以来的转型解释为不同参与者就各自的合同角色和责任进行谈判的过程。这项研究承诺不仅将成为这些事件的历史，而且将成为政策制定者和公用事业经理的有用规划工具。

Dr. Hirsh is examining the creation of a new consensus emerging between electric utilities and consumers that results in increased energy efficiency, lower customer costs, greater corporate profits, and enhanced environmental quality. In contrast to the acrimonious relationship between utilities and customers that existed in the 1970's, the new "social contract" has at its core the increasing sophistication of so-called "demand-side management" (DSM) technologies. A catch-all phrase that subsumes conservation measures and high-efficiency, end-use technologies, demand-side management curbs customer requirements for electricity and reduces the need for utilities to construct power plants, with all the attendant environmental savings. In a novel fashion that promises universal rewards, activist groups, utilities, and other players in the late 1980's seized upon DSM technologies to reach a new consensus. Dr. Hirsh's study is focusing on technological, regulatory, political, and managerial events that have coalesced to create a new social contract within the utility community. Employing oral history and documentary sources, his work extends research that deals with the restructuring of the utility industry that resulted from technological and regulatory innovations in the 1970's and 1980's. Dr. Hirsh's goal is to interpret the utility industry's transformation since the 1970's as the result of a process in which various players negotiated their contractual roles and responsibilities. The study promises to become not just a history of these events but a useful planning tool for policy makers and utility managers.