Autonomous Demand Response for frequency regulation is real, and being pursued as a way to deal with the intermittency of renewables and the resulting impact on grid supply. Here are some references:

General Topic: http://www.pnnl.gov/main/publications/external/technical_rep... http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196890416...

HVAC Demand/Response: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7407597/?reload=true

Aluminum Smelter Demand Response: http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1836&c...