Energy demand management
modification of consumer demand for energy
Energy demand management, also known as demand-side management (DSM) or demand-side response (DSR), is the modification of consumer demand for energy through various methods including inducing behavioral changes through education and financial incentives.
Usually, the goal of demand-side management is to encourage the consumer to use less energy during peak hours, or to move the time of energy use to off-peak times such as nighttime and weekends. Peak demand management does not necessarily decrease total energy consumption, but could be expected to reduce the grid congestion periods as well as the need for investments in networks and/or power plants for meeting peak demands. An example is the use of energy storage units to store energy during off-peak hours and discharge them during peak hours.
A newer application for DSM is to aid grid operators in balancing variable generation from wind and solar units, particularly when the timing and magnitude of energy demand does not coincide with the renewable generation. Generators brought on line during peak demand periods are often fossil fuel units. Minimizing their use reduces emissions and energy costs.
The term DSM was coined following the time of the 1973 energy crisis and 1979 energy crisis. Governments of many countries mandated performance of various programs for demand management. An early example is the National Energy Conservation Policy Act of 1978 in the U.S., preceded by similar actions in California and Wisconsin.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Energy demand management” is modification of consumer demand for energy. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Energy, demand and management, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1185136. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1979 and 1978.
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This entry incorporates text from “Energy demand management” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.