From: "Phil Payne" 

> Here in Ohio they use time of day billing to do that. Electricity at 7am
is
> more expensive than electricity at 5am. They also bill for sharp increases
> such as turning on all the lights in a big building at the same time, if
you
> spread out the load increase over a couple hours it costs you less.

Yup.  There is an interesting discussion going on in the UK, well away from
public eyes.  At present, the commercial television channels synchronise
their advert breaks - so if you're watching Channel 4 (some people do)
there's no point switching to 3 or 5 during an advert break because they'll
be having one too.

So people get up and make tea or coffee.  Or use the toilet - and since we
now "pump on demand" rather than using water towers, it has the
same effect.

The generators get a feed from the television stations giving them precise
warning of breaks. so they can spin up more capacity.

The main "energy storage" system used is pump storage in
Snowdonia.  Water is pumped up to a high reservoir at times of low demand
and used to generate power at times of peak demand.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5