The constant increase of the demand and the problems that this generates has generated the need to implement actions of demand management that allow to have a better performance of the system and a good cost benefit relation for both the user and the supplier. In this article a review the literature is done that includes the vision of different parts of the world, Europe, Asia, Latin America, analyzing the different problems that force to implement the actions of demand management, whether the deficit in generation, power quality or problems for suppliers and proposed actions to mitigate these problems. Finally, a comparison is made with the Colombian case, which details the government policies in 2016 that were used as a method of demand management that served to avoid a load shedding.