“We’re talking about marginal rate differences that might entice some people to shift some of their electrical consumption — not forcing them into becoming dwellers of the night.
I mean, putting the laundry in at 11pm just before bed or starting the dishes washing isn’t going to cause societal disruption. “
Dream on, I promise you it won’t end there. By the time they’re through, our power grid will be a NIGHTMARE. You’ll have some base load capability, but not much. You’ll then have all this green crap that will be dependent on whether the sun is out or the wind is blowing. What you won’t have is peak load capability (to speak of).
All of that becomes possible with our Smart Meters - they simply control what you operate, based on what’s available. Believe me, if it was just staying up half the night to do laundry, they wouldn’t be so gung-ho on imposing this infrastructure.
I'm not sure, but I think your scenario could come true. Smoothing out the peaks leads to a higher base load but they will want to lower the base load. The real problem is they want to kill carbon emissions and we can't get needed base load without it.