Lynne Kiesling
The Economist has an in which I participated, although they focus on the frequency control aspect of the project and not on the price-responsive capabilities of the devices.
The most advanced project is the brainchild of the American Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Last year it completed the first residential trial of its “Grid Friendly Appliance” controller–a small device that listens to the AC-frequency hum of the electricity supplied by the grid. If the hum goes a little flat, that indicates too much demand on the grid, so whenever a controller notices the American standard 60Hz grid frequency dipping to 59.95Hz (something that usually happens at least once a day) it shuts off the heating element in the appliance it is regulating for two minutes. If, at the end of that time, the grid is still unstable, the element stays off for another two minutes, and so on until a maximum of ten minutes have elapsed.
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