Giving them power to reach into my home and turn off the outlet my washing machine is on is definitely not "asking."
It seems to me that we've managed to have stable power for... decades?... without having rolling blackouts or the ability of politicians to reach into my home and turn off my computer.
Are you using a fallacy as a basis for your argument? Past performance is not a reliable predictor of the future.
But I agree with you, giving technocrats control of rationing decisions leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Consider a freezer where you have the thermostat set to -18c. Your freezer will have some tolerance on that, so maybe it kicks on the compressor at -16c and turns it off at -20c. In the event that we've had a sudden loss of generation capacity, the freezer responds to the signal by temporarily setting the the range to -15c / -18c, or to delay the next compressor run for an hour, or some other minor change that you likely won't notice or care about.
On the other hand, if you get an SMS asking you to change your freezer's thermostat for the next hour, are you going to go home and do that?
Edit: Also doesn't clause 236 part 6 permit us to modify our own devices as we see fit: "Energy smart regulations may not provide for a prohibition to be contravened by an end-user of an appliance (in their capacity as such) or for such a person to be enforced against as described in section 237 or 238."? If it's so important, I'm sure one can figure out how to block the signals.
You know what I noticed when I had an old house with old AC? It could barely keep up. On really hot days, it didn't. They offered me $5/month off my bill to allow them to turn off my AC remotely up to 15/min/hour. For a lot of people this would be precisely what you said: "small changes that you wouldn't even notice to your most energy intensive devices" In that house, it would have meant the AC would need to be replaced.
"Oh yeah, and you're totally allowed to turn this off if you can figure out how, and we'll never charge you with a crime. Good luck!"
"Wait! Why are you arresting me?!"
"You've been intentionally violating the DMCA!" lol
I think your comment perfectly highlights that, essentially the advancement of technology has now allowed the technicians and "experts" to now reach into your home and control how and when you use power arbitrarily at their discretion.
Although I'm quite sure that there will be a class of appliances available for people who don't perhaps want their heated pools to become cool.
Easy solution anyway: Unlimited kwhs, for £100/kwh, controlled kwhs for £0.05/kwh
Rather you should accept a transition to energy that is highly dependent on stable weather given the fact that we are supposed to face unstable weather. We don’t know if we’ll get less sun and wind due to the collapse of the jet stream. Therefore we need to invest in more solar and wind. It’s not hard.
Allow the government to be more authoritarian. Notice I’m not recommending the fascist governments like the GOP (yes I know the article is on the UK). No, I’m recommending the soft handed authoritarianism provided by our leftist benefactors. They’ll let you love whoever you want (including children if you’re a MAP). Love them. Accept them. Allow them to quarter people in your home. After all you wouldn’t even have a home if it wasn’t for the government.
Have you heard of batteries? Nuclear power?