Cold-load pickup as a result of a major contribution of thermostatically controlled loads makes load amount be higher than pre-outage levels, even exceeding the maximum restorable load amount. To ensure efficient and smooth load restoration, this paper proposes a novel load restoration reduction method considering demand response of air conditioning loads which are the representative of thermostatically controlled loads. At first, a model for estimating the aggregated power of air conditioning loads taking into account the outage time is developed, which can calculate the aggregated power after a period of outage rapidly. Then, considering the transient safety constraints and the system available recovery power, the maximum restorable load amount that a substation can pick up at one time is determined. Finally, based on estimation model and the maximum restorable load amount, the demand response technique is used to reduce the load restoration amount to make sure the load restoration is within the maximum limit. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve the reduction of air conditioning loads amount under different scenarios by means of demand response techniques and ensure the reliable restoration of a system. © 2022, Electrical Technology Press Co. Ltd. All right reserved.