Technological innovations are creating a larger role for demand-side resources in electric grids. The rise of demand-side resources is occurring alongside the efforts to decarbonize grids. The confluence of these two trends has motivated research on the role of demand-side resources in grid decarbonization. Here, we synthesize the demand-side resource literature to develop a coherent and realistic vision for that role. We find that demand-side resources can supplement supply-side approaches to decarbonize grids more quickly and cost effectively. The role of demand-side resources is secondary to that of supply-side resources, and a critical analysis of tradeoffs is required whenever demand-side solutions substitute for supply-side solutions. Nonetheless, our review suggests that demand-side solutions can play a meaningful role, providing around 10%–30% of the resources required for deep decarbonization in domains such as energy, peak capacity, and deployed solar capacity. However, demand-side resources remain underutilized due to several solvable barriers. The urgency imposed by climate change requires that these barriers be addressed to fully realize the demand-side resource opportunity.

技术创新正在为电网中的需求侧资源创造更大的作用。需求侧资源的增加与电网脱碳的努力同时发生。这两种趋势的融合激发了对需求侧资源在电网脱碳中作用的研究。在这里，我们综合了需求方资源文献，为该角色制定了一个连贯且现实的愿景。我们发现，需求方资源可以补充供应方方法，以更快、更经济地实现电网脱碳。需求方资源的作用次于供应方资源，每当需求方解决方案替代供应方解决方案时，都需要对权衡进行批判性分析。尽管如此，我们的审查表明，需求方解决方案可以发挥有意义的作用，在能源、峰值容量和部署的太阳能容量等领域提供深度脱碳所需资源的约 10%–30%。然而，由于一些可解决的障碍，需求侧资源仍未得到充分利用。气候变化带来的紧迫性要求解决这些障碍，以充分实现需求​​侧的资源机会。