A systematic literature review on residential demand response, with a focus on equity

The largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions remains the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity generation and transportation. Notwithstanding a global shift towards renewable energy, current projections indicate total energy consumption will double by 2050 (Crawley, 2021). Current energy supply scenarios fall short of achieving the reductions in GHG emission that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deems necessary to avert catastrophic climate impacts (Auffhammer, 2022). Adding urgency to the need for sustainable energy practices, the residential sector plays a crucial role in the transition to a decarbonized economy (Langevin et al., 2024). This underscores the importance of effective demand response (DR) programs within the sector, where energy use is both significant and variable (Trotta et al., 2020). This paper explores literature around residential demand and the evolution of DR programs in the United States over the past fifty years, tracing advancements in modeling, incentive design, and technology deployment. Early residential DR initiatives borrowed heavily from industrial and commercial sectors (Hirst, 1990), yet these approaches soon proved insufficient for the disaggregated and diverse patterns of household energy use, where socioeconomic, demographic, and behavioral factors play a critical role (Jin et al., 2021).