Coming in 2019, electric companies monitor your usage profile to tell when you turn on different appliances and charge you a higher rate for running your TV or charging your electric car. But don't worry, the free market will fix it.

In California you do get different rates if you get an electric car. You also get different rates (higher) if the State thinks you don't "need" air conditioning.

This is already a thing in several states and the general consensus is that it saves citizens money.

Is that because electric rates are heavily regulated as utilities, or because the free market let the only electric supplier do whatever they wanted to with your rate structure?

Isn't that already the case? You don't have two electrical lines running into your house.

That's the argument. The power utilities are tightly regulated.