How IT-Enabled Services Can Help to Change our World Building Networks for the Energy-Efficient City of Tomorrow

How natural resources are used in modern society is considered a high-priority topic within national and international political and social debate. Increases in energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy sources and emission control are important aspects of this subject that must be considered. A deeper understanding of existing infrastructure and the willingness to change on an individual and social level are needed, while determining factors like demographic change are taken into account. This paper introduces the energy-efficient city of tomorrow as a city of socio-technical networks that interact and are a basis for energy-related optimizations. Furthermore, the authors discuss the special role that IT-enabled services can play in understanding and changing those networks. To illustrate, the authors present a service as a case study that illustrates how services can provides relevant information and help to induce change.