The different methodological descriptions differ only marginally. As they overlap work presented by other authors that consider the U.S.' development of DSM, my judgement is that the choice to concentrate on one source does not limit the outcome of the following analysis. As Figure 15 shows, the first step is the establishment of a base case. Steps two to four are the construction and ranking of demand-side management programs. Step five is implementation and step six is the evaluation of the implemented programs.
Feedback loops go between step six and steps one and five.
This makes it possible to modify both the base case and the ongoing demand side programs in accordance with the evaluation of the data. The base case is a detailed estimate of the current utilisation of energy services as well as the efficiency of the energy technology. The base case also involves a projection of the future need of energy services, saturation of end-use technologies, and energy efficiency of these technologies. The demand for electricity is calculated as the product of the number of appliances, equipment saturation, and average annual energy use per equipment. This demand for energy is then calibrated to the utility's ordinary forecasts.