Demand-side policy: Global evidence base and implementation patterns

Demand-side management (DSM) policy refers to government policies for managing energy consumption in order to meet environmental and energy security objectives. The broader term of demand-side management encompasses energy efficiency, demand response and on-site generation and storage. A comprehensive meta-evaluation of the global evidence base for demand-side policy is lacking in the literature, and this paper contributes to filling this research gap. The paper focuses on the quality of the evidence base and policy implementation patterns and identifies 30 countries and 36 sub-national states across six continents that have implemented demand-side management policies and produced high-quality ex-post evaluations of those policies. The 690 high-quality evaluations are primarily conducted by industry rather than by governments or academia. The results show that 12 types of individual demand-side management policy and 9 demand-side management policy packages have been implemented and evaluated, and that carbon emissions reduction is the primary driver for demand-side management policies. The evidence base is greatest in the USA, the UK, California, France and China, and alternative utility business models (such as performance targets and decoupling policies), information campaigns, loans and subsidies, utility obligations and performance standards are the most commonly implemented and evaluated policies. This paper argues that demand-side policy will play an increasingly important role as a complement to low carbon activities on the supply-side in the transition to a more environmentally sustainable energy system.