And on the start up surges being a signature, it wold be impossible to be sure a start up surge is coming from the same appliance accurately all the time. Older appliances will consume different quantities of electricity based on the environmental conditions in the house, A dryer for instance will use more power when it is colder and damper than when it is warmer and dryer in the house.
Power consumption alone is not enough to get a warrant, neither is energy profile, if your worried change your power profile no and again by plugging uvb light into your flowering timer for a week, then remove it plug in a fan for a week, remove that. Plug in a water pump on a cycle timer for a week remove that, then plug in a stereo for a month remove that. The initial power usage will still be there but it will be buried in different wattages that change on a regular basis over a period of time.
We had to put Isolation transformers on Variable frequency drives once because the electricity the Power company provided was so dirty the drive wouldn't function properly. I have a hard time understanding how they could find a signature amongst all that harmonic distortion in the sine wave.
There are a plethora of ways to mask, hide, distort, regulate your sine wave, you just need to read and be creative, and you don't need to spend thousands of dollars.
Just an Idea here, you could have a power bar with timers set in a 8 hour sequence, to start up and shut off a few different things. Neon signs have a ballast, so do CFL's and a lot of outdoor fixtures, there are start capacitors on motors in fridges washing machines and dryers.
To get scared over this at this point and time may be a little premature, I am not going for the fear mongering.