I wasn't referring to TOU pricing, but actually exposing residential customers to the wholesale market prices that a commenter below pointed out typically run e

I wasn't referring to TOU pricing, but actually exposing residential customers to the wholesale market prices that a commenter below pointed out typically run every 5 minutes in most parts of the US. The utilities and actual generator owners bid into this ultra-complex auction and get an instruction on where to go every 5 minutes that minimizes operating costs and determines prices at every node. These prices are extremely volatile (pretty much the most volatile major commodity) and change rapidly in short periods of time (example: from $25/MWh to $5000/MWh within a few minutes). The bigger players deal with these prices by hedging in various forward markets and through other contracts. There is a big push from academia and a lot of the big names in the industry to have the residential customers exposed to that so the demand side of the auction finally starts working which solves a lot of the pre-existing problems coming from running a market where demand is almost entirely inelastic. I shouldn't have used "foaming at the mouth" as the connotation is pretty negative. I should have said extremely committed or something like that. These are all smart and good people trying to solve a major problem that's been ongoing for decades. The economist in me agrees with them, but part of me also has an aversion to the constant complexity creep in our lives as well as risk.