demand
/dɪˈmɑːnd/ noun- The amount of electricity wanted at a given moment.
- Wanting that arrives all at once.
9 July 2026 · Amsterdam · 1 minute
Demand is not a total but a shape. Over a day, a city wants roughly the same energy whether its cars charge at noon or at midnight. What changes is when, and the grid is built for when.
A weekday in a residential district. The band shows the same evening spread by smart charging.
1
The evening
The peak is set by habit, not by need.
People come home, cook, switch on the heat and plug in the car, all within the same ninety minutes. Each act is small. Together they set the size of every cable in the street.
2
Spreading it
The band in the figure carries the same energy as the line. It is lower because the cars in it were told, politely, that the morning would do. Nobody in that street drove less. They just stopped asking for everything at once.
See grid, curtailment and tariff.