Local storing of energy

How about this? I'm not an expert in high power networks, but here's a typical load profile for an electrical network over a day (there are other seasonal fluctuations as well):



In theory a network needs to be dimensioned to satisfy the highest demand, and eventually to dump or store extra energy which is not used in periods of less demand (for example by pumping water into dams).

The difference between the highest and lowest peak in the load profile is 20GW, for this example, which i got from wikipedia). The problem I see is that the peak control is made at a macro-scale, requiring the network to be over-dimensioned to meet the demand (for example additional gas plants are required which can be fired quickly to meet sudden peaks of demand).

What if every building (including residences) were to consume and simultaneously store part of the energy they require to operate locally? They would store during periods when the overall demand was lowest, and at the time of high peaks they would use that energy, disconnecting from the electrical network, thus reducing the maximum load and the need for an over dimensioned network - resulting in balancing the load at a micro-level. There is clearly an efficiency problem in the losses due to energy conversion for storage and usage, but the benefit could exceed the loss (somebody should do the math...).

Eventually as new storage technology (batteries, hydrogen cells, nano-capacitors...) becomes available this could turn out to be a good solution to reduce the need for more power plants. Also an infrastructure that supports DC rather than AC might also help, to reduce the number of conversions, and the losses in the electrical distribution. Another advantage is that buildings making use of renewable energy collectors, could re-direct the energy from these sources to this storage system to complement the need for usage of network power.

The control of the charge/discharge cycles of the buildings could be done by digital data transferred to/from the network central, via internet, to the circuits on the buildings and each region could be controlled separately to balance the load as required. An intelligent system which knows the overall power demand, the storage capability of each building and acquires in real time rates of consumption could smartly and optimally manage the charge/discharges cycles. As I said, I'm not an expert, it's just a thought...