Ah, yeah, I think you're slightly misunderstanding this proposal.
First, and the biggie, the BBC would be responsible for including Cue Dots/Marks/Frames which signal the program's TTL not that "more power is needed in UK". That'd be irrational and dangerous. It's up to the power guys to interrogate the cue information and then react to it. That's just basic separation of responsibilities.
Second, you'd still want a centralized component to interrogate the cue information and then tell power utilities to turn on/off, just like the current model. Of course, they will still need people in the loop - the computer would be there to propose which assets to activate and to provide a countdown to when a decision will need to be made - a guided decision making system. (Computers can do this sort of cost optimization faster then people.)
Third, their man in the power HQ is already relying on a TV set to predict when the spike is about to occur, so any sort of system has to be at least that reliable (i.e. not very).
Fourth, what if the power boffins lose the signal to the BBC? Calling "mum" is a terrible idea, but having automatic failover and/or redundant reporting stations are the type of precautions a basic safety review should uncover.
TLDR: Not suggesting that the BBC tell the Power Co that they should add more power to the grid. Just suggesting a system to augment decision making based on Program TTL.
First, and the biggie, the BBC would be responsible for including Cue Dots/Marks/Frames which signal the program's TTL not that "more power is needed in UK". That'd be irrational and dangerous. It's up to the power guys to interrogate the cue information and then react to it. That's just basic separation of responsibilities.
Second, you'd still want a centralized component to interrogate the cue information and then tell power utilities to turn on/off, just like the current model. Of course, they will still need people in the loop - the computer would be there to propose which assets to activate and to provide a countdown to when a decision will need to be made - a guided decision making system. (Computers can do this sort of cost optimization faster then people.)
Third, their man in the power HQ is already relying on a TV set to predict when the spike is about to occur, so any sort of system has to be at least that reliable (i.e. not very).
Fourth, what if the power boffins lose the signal to the BBC? Calling "mum" is a terrible idea, but having automatic failover and/or redundant reporting stations are the type of precautions a basic safety review should uncover.
TLDR: Not suggesting that the BBC tell the Power Co that they should add more power to the grid. Just suggesting a system to augment decision making based on Program TTL.