That reminds me of the so called "Niedertarif-Speicherheizung" (storage heater) that were installed until the 80s here in Germany. They used the comparatively cheaper energy during the nighttime to heat up and then emit the heat during the day. They were controlled by the energy provider to turn on when the energy price was low.

To be clear: this is literally what the US has. I suspect @ourlordcaffeine knows this, but for anyone else reading it.

Long distance power transmission can face losses of around 10% per mile.

But if you turn power into coins at point A, then use coins to buy power at point B, maybe you have transmission losses that don't scale with distance?

They should accelerate a particle with it.

EDIT: Whip it around in circles with giant electromagnets.

Free electricity that turns off half the time and run basically randomly for the other half? Without a battery it’s useless, and you have to pay for that battery. Treating the electric grid as a battery shouldn’t be free. It’s just in this case they found the cost of battery to be greater than the value of the electricity they’re creating.

In SA there are some pump-hydro storage projects in the pipeline which should smooth out some of these variations.