Special purpose energy currencies and the no arbitrage moment

Consider the utility company to which we pay our monthly utility bill.  Generally they will carry over partially missed payments, and I have even overpaid on occasion and they carry over the credit.

What is to be gained by them if they create special energy currencies and offer savings and lending accounts?  They offer each subscriber the opportunity to pre-pay the utility bill and earn a savings rate, and simultaneously, offer them the ability to borrow and pay a utility bill.  They set rates and limits such that the accumulated imbalance is about the same as they currently carry with tax dollars.

What does the utility company gain with this special purpose currency?
Knowledge, a great deal of knowledge about the future demand for energy. Watching the savings and loan balances, they can infer when customers are increasing demand, relative to other uses of customer tax dollars. They have regained information lost by the currency exchanges, all of that information is restored to them via a special customer relationship.  Second, the information lost in currency exchange is restored back to the customer via the lending and saving rates.

What are the rules of the game?
Customers are member banks and the utility company is the central banker. The algorithm for managing savings and lending rates generates the Black-Sholes pricing all the time and the balances become a Weiner process. Once a customer joins, then they may generally withdraw at any time, but are more likely to simply use up their savings balances.

Won't the utility company be tempted to cheat?
No. a Weiner process will balance supply and demand better than an other opportunity visible. So, other than personal theft, the energy executives will have no visible reason to mis-use the system. In fact, the real danger is that they become deluded by the perfection and over expand their business.


How do utility companies get started? 
Hire a mathematician and tell them to look at my blog. Otherwise go up to Silicon Valley and bitch at the venture capital industry.

I would imagine a utility company using such a scheme would save up to 15% of their wholesale energy costs. The lending and savings rates inform the customer about future supply, and inform the energy company about future demand, all other customer purchases are optimally separated from the deal.