This paper deals with the optimal path placement for a manipulator based on energy consumption. It proposes a methodology to determine the optimal location of a given test path within the workspace of a manipulator with minimal electric energy used by the actuators while taking into account the geometric, kinematic and dynamic constraints. The proposed methodology is applied to the Orthoglide~3-axis, a three-degree-of-freedom translational parallel kinematic machine (PKM), as an illustrative example.