Toby,
It occurs to me that local storage can potentially play a role here - depending on its efficiency of course. One can anticipate that future technology will offer higher % there - especially if market forces drive that equation.
Therefore - a future system could offset power surges by drawing on locally stored resources that were captured during off-peak or excess capacity. In fact such a system may notify suppliers that they can "push" excess power to local storage at some pre-determined cost point - and of course also need to indicate that the storage facility is at a certain % level, or if empty - accept units at a higher cost rate.
DW
