Back in the 70's I had a friend that worked in the national grid control room, his job was switching supply around when demand outstripped demand.
Fortunately these days there are loads of automated ways to help out with demand response, like getting supermarkets to turn off their freezers for a few minutes. Some of the bigger process factories than can stop their machines at short notice are able to benefit from extremely favourable supply contracts - they get their 'leccy extremely cheap.
And there is another way, that perhaps Joe Public hasn’t yet cottoned on to: Once we all have our super new smart meters, new tariffs could be introduced where at times of high demand, suppliers will have the facility to simply jack up the unit price for those odd half hours when they need to decrease demand! Easy peasy as smart meters are already sending back your consumption to the supplier, every 30 minutes.
