Four demand response trends every facility manager should know

Facility managers today are navigating a perfect storm of rising energy costs and growing grid stress. That's putting new focus on what demand response can deliver.

Traditional demand response programs have been gaining traction as a strategy to cut facility energy costs and earn incentives while supporting long-term savings and sustainability goals. These utility-led programs usually activate only a handful of times each year in response to acute grid needs.

But DR is evolving far beyond these roots, opening up exciting new opportunities for facilities managers to manage electricity loads in ways that can cut cost and carbon.

Here, we dig in deeper to explore how facilities managers (FMs) across data centers, manufacturing, hospitals, education, and other sectors are harnessing new DR strategy to manage load more proactively — and reduce operational costs in the process.

Four ways demand response is evolving today

Demand response is expanding beyond its traditional boundaries. Today, four emerging approaches are redefining what DR can do:

1. Continuous demand response. Moving from event-based to continuous demand flexibility^[1], this approach still involves coordination or communication with the utility, such as via the OpenADR standard^[2]. But instead of static DR events on just a few days per year, continuous DR shifts load throughout the year, managing daily exposure to demand charges and volatile pricing.

   In manufacturing, for instance, this might mean automatically ramping down non-critical compressed air systems during daily peak windows, versus waiting for a utility call to act.

2. Internal demand response. Also called demand-side management (DSM), demand-side flexibility, and/or load shifting, this voluntary strategy gives facilities self-directed control over reducing or shifting electricity usage without waiting for utility signals. It does not require utility coordination or communication, and can happen exclusively on the customer / facility side in response to price signals.

   By timing energy use around applicable rate structures — such as time-of-use rates, real-time pricing, and other rates that enable price arbitrage — facilities can reduce costs through the same load flexibility that powers traditional DR, but on their own terms and schedule.

   In settings where operational continuity is paramount, like hospitals and data centers, internal DR can give managers important control over when and how load flexibility happens, rather than ceding that timing to external signals.

3. Virtual power plants (VPPs). These networked energy resources enable facilities to aggregate smaller, distributed loads — both within a site and/or across sites — to participate in larger, more flexible energy markets. This means multiple buildings across a corporate, healthcare, or higher ed campus; various banks of EV charging stations; or multiple data centers and their compute workloads can be coordinated and managed as a single, market-responsive resource.

   Utilities are among those launching new pilots to tap this potential. For example, Dominion Energy Virginia proposed a new virtual power plant pilot^[3], building on 2025 legislation, that uses the utility’s existing demand response and demand-side management programs as its foundation. There’s also a growing number of third-party VPP operators that enroll and aggregate distributed energy resources (DERs) and loads, and sell the VPP services into utility markets.

4. Environmental demand response. Also called grid carbon intensity-based demand response, this approach goes beyond price signals to co-optimize around carbon and emissions data. In practice, it works in two directions: reducing electricity use when the grid is powered by higher-emissions sources, and increasing flexible demand when cleaner energy is abundant.

   For example, by adjusting the timing of its flexible demand load to sync with moments of cleaner energy, a large semiconductor manufacturer is reducing CO2 emissions by up to an expected ~2,500 metric tons^[4] annually, while the buildings on a university campus in the Midwest cut HVAC costs and emissions by 10%^[5].

   The other side of the coin is increasing electricity demand when surplus clean energy would otherwise go unused. In Texas^[6], where transmission constraints leave wind and solar generation stranded, some data center developers buy this excess renewable power and time operations to absorb it, ramping workloads up when clean energy is abundant and scaling back when it’s not.

    

What this means for facility operations

For facility managers, these emerging trends translate into new operational realities. As utilities shift to 15-minute interval metering and DR incentives get more granular, managing energy at that resolution is quickly becoming a baseline practical requirement.

Load management now intersects directly with building operations, production schedules, and equipment sequencing — which means an energy decision rarely stays just an energy decision. In sectors from healthcare to continuous manufacturing, where operational continuity cannot be compromised, that tension is especially acute.

But that complexity is also where the opportunity lives. For facility managers who approach demand response as a strategic capability rather than a reactive one, the potential to drive real organizational performance is significant.

Getting there means asking the right questions. 

• Where are peak demand charges creating the greatest financial exposure, and which of those peaks could be controlled without disrupting operations?
• Are current DR programs built around occasional grid events, or around the cost pressures and operational realities your facilities face every day?
• And is the team structured to capture that value independently, or would targeted external partnership sharpen the strategy?

How you answer these questions will help determine where and how DR might work best in your facilities.

Demand response is just getting started

Demand response has outgrown its reputation as a niche program dusted off during grid emergencies. In a high-load, high-demand-charge environment, it’s becoming a core tool for cost control, operational resilience, and long-term energy planning.

The facilities best positioned to capture that value won't be those that wait for the landscape to stabilize. They'll be the ones building DR into their strategy now, with the right approach for their specific operation.

Contact a Mantis expert to discuss how demand response could support your organization’s goals.