Might be of interest to those outside the U.K. who are not familiar with this system. This site has an overview of the Radio Teleswitch arrangements which are now in widespread use to control domestic "Economy 7" heating loads:

http://www.radioteleswitch.org.uk/

Interesting way of doing it.

Eirgrid over here uses some remote switching of loads for crisis situations, if a major generation station were to drop out at peak demand, they can switch out a large number of customers off line who have CHP type installations. They use GSM data links over the mobile phone network to do it.

It's called STAR (Short Term Active Response)

It's designed to protect the grid and stablise the frequency in such an event.

We have simauir system over in the USA area and yes some are remote controlled by either remote meter with a relay or a mircoswitch to active or deactive the load.

For multi tier rate customers which they will be used with electric waterheater or central air conditioing unit or both during hevey power useage the raido singal will kick the units off from the grids but for commercal/ industrail customers if they have CHP { combined heat and power } units or standby generators they can kick those unit up.

{ in France it the same situation as well }

Merci.Marc