• The paper reviews 439 articles published over the last 30 years focusing on energy saving. • Provides a comprehensive review of global trends using advanced scientometric tools. • Reveals significant disparity in coverage of energy efficiency and energy conservation. • Almost 89% of papers focus on energy efficiency and only 11% deal with energy conservation. The pursuit of sustainable energy systems requires not only technological advances in energy efficiency (EE) but also behavioral and policy-driven efforts in energy conservation (EC). However, the relative emphasis placed on these two domains in research remains unclear. This study conducts a comprehensive bibliometric and scientometric analysis of global literature on EE and EC published between 1984 and 2024, using data retrieved from the Scopus database. After applying appropriate filtering and selection procedures, 329 relevant studies were identified from an initial set of 439 publications. The results reveal a significant imbalance in research focus: approximately 88.7% of studies address EE, while only 11.2% focus on EC. This disparity reflects the predominance of technology-oriented research and the limited attention given to user behavior, policy interventions, and social dimensions of energy saving. The study maps major research trends, collaboration networks, and thematic clusters, highlighting how EE research has evolved rapidly with industrial and policy agendas, whereas EC remains underrepresented and fragmented. Building on these findings, the paper identifies key knowledge gaps and proposes future research directions to strengthen the role of EC in achieving holistic and sustainable energy transitions. The insights contribute to rebalancing the discourse on energy saving by emphasizing the need for integrated strategies that combine both efficiency improvements and behavioral conservation efforts.
Jan et al. (Sun,) studied this question.