Energy consumption is an important factor in the operation of machine tools. Recent studies showed that in average, $${1}/{5}$$of the machine tools total energy demand is caused by internal cooling systems. The continually rising performance of machine tools, together with the importance of thermal stability, reasons the requirement for demand oriented cooling approaches, which could significantly reduce the energy consumption for internal machine cooling. This study applied classic and demand oriented cooling strategies on a machine tool frame, which is one of the most complex machine tool components from a thermal point of view. The demand oriented cooling is based on volume flow control and can either be configured close to the environmental temperature or close to the thermal steady state, which can be obtained by loss forecast in combination with an FE model or measurement. The impact of the strategies on the thermal reaction as well as the energy consumption is compared, showing a significant reduction of energy demand without significant impairment of the thermal stability.