An article at Azimuth by Todd McKissick has an interesting proposal on how to organize a smart grid. In addition to the economic and technical advantages listed, it occurs to me that there are psychological ones as well. Perhaps people would be less concerned about the smart grid if they considered it as their agent in a bidding game, as opposed to something imposed on them.
An Alternative Smart Grid
Michael Tobis
Michael Tobis, editor-in-chief of Planet3.0 and site cofounder, has always been interested in the interface between science and public policy. He holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences where he developed a 3-D ocean model on a custom computing platform. He has been involved in sustainability conversations on the internet since 1992, has been a web software developer since 2000, and has been posting sustainability articles on the web since 2007.