According to an aspect of the present invention, nodes for hosting of new virtual machines (VM) are selected according to approaches designed to reduce power consumption in a grid. In an embodiment, the approaches are designed to facilitate the possibility of freeing one or more nodes from hosting VMs to power down the nodes, thereby reducing power consumption. Thus, an example approach is based on provisioning a new VM on a node which currently (immediately prior to provisioning) has the maximum resource consumption. Another example approach is based on provisioning a new VM on a node which currently has small-sized VMs in terms of resource requirements. In yet another embodiment, the approach is based on provisioning a new VM on a node located in a geographical area having low power tariffs.