I wouldn't worry unless you hit 3000 watts of lights. The single most important thing is, pay your electric bill on time, every time. That's what they really want, your money. The electric company isn't working to put people away, they just want money for their electricity.
On the 12-hour cycle, what you can do is run a 1k light during the day and a different 1k light during the night. That way, other than a tiny blip when you switch over, the power usage is steady.
But I am positive they don't have an army of people looking over usage logs to find suspicious activity. What would they gain? If they find something suspicious and turn you in, they *lose* a customer, which is obviously the exact opposite of what they want.
That said, I have a digital meter, and have been running two 600-watts, one 400-watt, and one 432-watt (low profile fluoro for veg), for years, with no probs. I run the 600s at night, the 432 is always on, and the 400 watt runs during the day. So the variance is +800 watts at night, which is not at all abnormal. People come home from work, flip on their big plasma screen, their surround sound stereo, their PS3 and their computer -- boom, that's quite a bit more than 800 watts I'm sure.
Honestly, unless you're going for a really major operation, I wouldn't worry about the electric company. They only lose when a paying customer becomes a prisoner. Just pay your bills and they'll be happy.