[tialaramex]

I think one place this could go, a decade or more in our future is that the electricity isn't worth metering but the fact you can have electricity is billed. Think of a typical phone service today. You don't pay to send a text or read Hacker News on your phone, but you do pay for the privilege to be able to do either of those whenever you want.

So I'm imagining instead of spending 40p per day plus 24p per kWh maybe it's £1 per day and usage isn't really metered. A few people would abuse this, but if energy is cheap enough it's barely worth caring.

[bryanlarsen]

In the 50's "too cheap to meter" was a saying that made sense because metering was expensive. Computers have made metering cheap.

Your internet/phone analogy is relevant. They are metered, but you aren't billed on usage. Metering is used to monitor for abuse.

Australia is already moving towards the system you envisage. They're going to give you free power between 10AM and 3PM. I bet there's fine print in it similar to internet/TV, some sort of abuse limit.