An apparatus, comprising: a guided surface wave receive structure configured to obtain electrical energy from a guided surface wave traveling along a terrestrial medium ; an electrical load coupled to the guided surface wave receive structure , the electrical load being experienced as a load at an excitation source coupled to a guided surface waveguide probe generating the guided surface wave; characterised by : memory configured to store a predefined amount of permitted power consumption in the memory ; a network interface ; and processing circuitry configured to: communicate an identifier over a network to a remote computing device via the network interface to authenticate the apparatus using the identifier ; in response to the apparatus being authenticated, monitor the electrical load to determine whether a power consumption of the electrical load has exceeded the predefined amount of permitted power consumption ; disable the guided surface wave receive structure or the electrical load coupled to the guided surface wave receive structure in response to the electrical load exceeding the predefined amount of permitted power consumption ; and cause an auxiliary power source of the apparatus to provide power to the electrical load in response to the electrical load exceeding the predefined amount of permitted power consumption . a guided surface wave receive structure configured to obtain electrical energy from a guided surface wave traveling along a terrestrial medium ; an electrical load coupled to the guided surface wave receive structure , the electrical load being experienced as a load at an excitation source coupled to a guided surface waveguide probe generating the guided surface wave; characterised by : memory configured to store a predefined amount of permitted power consumption in the memory ; a network interface ; and processing circuitry configured to: communicate an identifier over a network to a remote computing device via the network interface to authenticate the apparatus using the identifier ; in response to the apparatus being authenticated, monitor the electrical load to determine whether a power consumption of the electrical load has exceeded the predefined amount of permitted power consumption ; disable the guided surface wave receive structure or the electrical load coupled to the guided surface wave receive structure in response to the electrical load exceeding the predefined amount of permitted power consumption ; and cause an auxiliary power source of the apparatus to provide power to the electrical load in response to the electrical load exceeding the predefined amount of permitted power consumption . communicate an identifier over a network to a remote computing device via the network interface to authenticate the apparatus using the identifier ; in response to the apparatus being authenticated, monitor the electrical load to determine whether a power consumption of the electrical load has exceeded the predefined amount of permitted power consumption ; disable the guided surface wave receive structure or the electrical load coupled to the guided surface wave receive structure in response to the electrical load exceeding the predefined amount of permitted power consumption ; and cause an auxiliary power source of the apparatus to provide power to the electrical load in response to the electrical load exceeding the predefined amount of permitted power consumption . <EOS>