Comment by eru

I suspect you can make these things work, but it's not 'free': organising a bunch of retail customers and dealing with them takes a lot of effort.

> (I know people who have had their AC turned off during heat waves and were not very pleased)

I suspect they probably agreed to pretty harsh control in the name of cheaper electricity, but actually were only willing to tolerate relatively small amounts of loadshedding. I wonder whether better contracts can help align expectations here in the future. Eg allow the electricity company to set your aircon's thermostat up to 3K warmer (or something like that), but not turn it off completely?