The consumer interface only requires the driver to include one header:

#include <linux/regulator/consumer.h> 

A consumer can be static or dynamic. A static one requires only a fixed supply, whereas a dynamic one requires active management of the regulator at runtime. From the consumer point side, a regulator device is represented in the kernel as an instance of a struct regulator structure, defined in drivers/regulator/internal.h and shown as follows:

/* 
 * struct regulator 
 * 
 * One for each consumer device. 
 */ 
struct regulator { 
   struct device *dev; 
   struct list_head list; 
   unsigned int always_on:1; 
   unsigned int bypass:1; 
   int uA_load; 
   int min_uV; 
   int max_uV; 
   char *supply_name; 
   struct device_attribute dev_attr; 
   struct regulator_dev *rdev; 
   struct dentry *debugfs; 
}; 

This structure is meaningful...