Demand-Side Policy: Mechanisms for Success and Failure

Demand-side management (DSM) policy evaluations, including energy efficiency and demand response, primarily focus on ex-ante appraisals or ex-post evaluations of impacts, such as energy savings, carbon savings and implementation costs. However, there is a knowledge gap in understanding the mechanisms behind the success and failure of demand-side policies. The paper presents the results of a four-year project to systematically review the global evaluation evidence base in order to identify the key factors for success and failure for different types of DSM policy. The realist synthesis type of systematic review has had limited application in the energy policy field and the research developed a methodological approach to apply it to energy policy analysis. The paper inductively identifies 22 key success factors and 25 key failure factors for twelve types of demand-side policy from a sample of 102 high-quality documents, which cover 690 ex-post evaluations and 66 countries and sub-national states across six continents.