I think they have contract obligation to take some energy, so they just resell it.
Anyway the biggest problem of German grid are not really peak hours, but transporting energy from north where turbines are to industrial south.
Anyway the biggest problem of German grid are not really peak hours, but transporting energy from north where turbines are to industrial south.
The basic rule is - those, who unbalances the network pays those that balances it back for the troubles, so there's huge incentive to predict your power requirements and transfer requirements precisely. I guess Germany with their solar cells and wind turbines have a lot of problems with that.
There are a few whole markets set up with energy, transfer capacities, reduction (or increases) offers by both plants and users, and it works quite nicely.
I worked on a system for bulk energy trading and it was very intersting to see how it works behind the scenes.
BTW demand reduction is actually BETTER than storing and returning energy. Demand reduction of 100 MW frees more than 100 MW (heating loses), and lets other people use the wires in that time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_the_National_Grid_%2...
Another, unrelated, slightly bonkers UK power supply innovation is the ability for energy companies to remotely control their customers' supplies using secret signals embedded in Radio 4: