I remember those clever Kiwis use Ripple Control, whereby the grid load is smoothed by being able to have some flexibility in the time that off-peak heating is on. IIRC, the way they do it is that the consumer is guaranteed a certain amount of heater time during the night, but the time it comes on can be changed during sudden demand or generator fall-off, and those that use daytime electricity for heating can have the heating circuit switched out for a certain amount of time.
Seeing as more and more people seem to have radio teleswitches these days to turn off-peak on and off, I was wondering (as the frost hardened outside) why we don't have this system here?
Just as an aside, I just reminded myself of my friend Joe's company: