The objective of this paper is to present an energy-based method for calculating target displacement of RC structures. The method, which uses the Newmark-Hall pseudo-velocity spectrum, is called the "Pseudo-velocity Spectrum (PSVS) Method". The method is based on the energy balance concept that uses the equality of energy demand and energy capacity of the structure. First, nonlinear static analyses are performed for five, eight and ten-story RC frame structures and pushover curves are obtained. Then the pushover curves are converted to energy capacity diagrams. Seven strong ground motions that were recorded at different soil sites in Turkey are used to obtain the pseudo-acceleration and the pseudo-velocity response spectra. Later, the response spectra are idealised with the Newmark-Hall approximation. Afterwards, energy demands for the RC structures are calculated using the idealised pseudo-velocity spectrum. The displacements, obtained from the energy capacity diagrams that fit to the energy demand values of the RC structures, are accepted as the energy-based performance point of the structures. Consequently, the target displacement values determined from the PSVS Method are checked using the displacement-based successive approach in the Turkish Seismic Design Code. The results show that the target displacements of RC frame structures obtained from the PSVS Method are very close to the values calculated by the approach given in the Turkish Seismic Design Code.