My father is in the power generation industry. His company makes software to allocate production amongst different generation assets: nuclear, coal, gas turbine, wind turbine, solar, etc, while meeting physical constraints (some unit types can't be turned up/down very quickly), all while meeting regulatory requirements, maintenance schedules, and maximizing profit under power and fuel price forecasts.
I say all this to help you understand that he's intimately acquainted with how all this works. He's been a power grid engineer for 45 years at this point. As was his father before him.
He said that, after reading the regulatory letter, he didn't believe they were substantially limiting the spin up of resources with the requirement to attempt to buy power first, because there was none to be bought. He would know.
So, yes, it was ridiculous virtue signaling to include that requirement, but it didn't mean squat in actual operation.
My father is in the power generation industry. His company makes software to allocate production amongst different generation assets: nuclear, coal, gas turbine, wind turbine, solar, etc, while meeting physical constraints (some unit types can't be turned up/down very quickly), all while meeting regulatory requirements, maintenance schedules, and maximizing profit under power and fuel price forecasts.
I say all this to help you understand that he's intimately acquainted with how all this works. He's been a power grid engineer for 45 years at this point. As was his father before him.
He said that, after reading the regulatory letter, he didn't believe they were substantially limiting the spin up of resources with the requirement to attempt to buy power first, because there was none to be bought. He would know.
So, yes, it was ridiculous virtue signaling to include that requirement, but it didn't mean squat in actual operation.