  A large fraction of the total electric load is comprised of end-use devices
whose demand for energy is inherently deferrable in time. Of interest is the
potential to leverage on such latent flexibility in demand to absorb
variability in power supplied from intermittent renewable generation. The
challenge, however, lies in designing incentives to reliably induce the desired
response in demand. With an eye to electric vehicle charging, we propose a
novel forward market for differentiated electric power services, where
consumers consent to deferred service of pre-specified loads in exchange for a
reduced per-unit price for energy. The longer a consumer is willing to defer,
the larger the reduction in price. The proposed forward contract provides a
guarantee on the aggregate quantity of energy to be delivered by a
consumer-specified deadline. Under the earliest-deadline-first (EDF) scheduling
policy, which is shown to be optimal for the supplier, we explicitly
characterize a non-discriminatory, deadline-differentiated pricing scheme that
yields an efficient competitive equilibrium between the supplier and consumers.
We further show that this efficient pricing scheme, in combination with EDF
scheduling, is incentive compatible (IC) in that every consumer would like to
reveal her true deadline to the supplier, regardless of the actions taken by
other consumers.
