The field of energy management is an area increasingly studied. However, most solutions are based on centralized systems and barely fulfil criterion like fault tolerance or adaptability. Also, these systems are often difficult to design because of the "top-down" approach used: the designer generally knows how each component has to respond separately, but a centralized management system focuses his attention solely on the overall reaction of the system. That is why a distributed management solution based on the paradigm of Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) is proposed in this paper. In addition to a more natural conception, based on a "bottom-up" approach, this solution ensures better system reliability. After reviewing the previous works, an application of MAS to power management in a hybrid power source is presented. Then, the system is tested using a simulation model. The results show that this approach is perfectly valid and can respond to most problems of centralized energy management systems (EMSs). (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.