Therefore, to change the energy of a system, energy must be transferred to or from the system. Heat and work are the only two mechanisms by which energy can be transferred to or from a control mass. Heat is the transfer of energy caused by the temperature difference.emperature is used as a measure of the internal energy or enthalpy, that is the level of elementary motion giving rise to heat transfer. Heat can only be transferred between objects, or areas within an object, with different temperatures (as given by the zeroth law of thermodynamics).