I found this funny anecdote from a CNET article about the future of power:
Power and utility companies must exactly balance supply with what people consume at any given moment. UK grid operators famously must cope with a demand surge after the TV soap opera “EastEnders” ends, when thousands of people start boiling water for tea.
There’s a Wikipedia article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station
Reminds me of the, ahem, “load” testing they do of new stadiums and their toilet facilities. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/23/AR2008022302198.html
For many years this was nearly the primary reason for significant utilisation of more than one UK generating facility. Its a very unusual demand, extremely peaky in nature and electricity being difficult/expensive to store (to counter peak instantaneous demands), rather than smoothly deliver led to some great solutions.
Take a look at Dinorwig Power Station (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_Power_Station) in North Wales for instance, for more idea of probably the most successful solutions to date.
It’s amazing how much planning and intelligence goes into this. Almost impossible to distinguish from parody. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=slDAvewWfrA
In the early days of television, there was a huge strain on the water system every 30 minutes at the break between half-hour programs. I think this was before commercial breaks as we know them in modern times came to be.