It is completely unnecessary for appliances to talk to the power company. They only need to talk to the internet. The power company just posts the spot price on a web site.
The appliances won't talk to the power company, they'll talk to the appliance hub. The appliance hub will be the one with the logic to handle temporarily raising the thermostat or whatever, and will handle the internet connection.
Also, using a website or other resource run by the power company is still talking to the power company. Not sure ho else you could have parsed that, but you clearly had some crossed wires there.
