the western grid has 258,000 MW of generation. renewables go up and down like yo-yos, power plants go on-line and offline all the time and a large and always in

the western grid has 258,000 MW of generation. renewables go up and down like yo-yos, power plants go on-line and offline all the time and a large and always increasing fraction of it is unscheduled and uncontrolled. Of course it depends on the size and location of the power plant, but there are many more small plants that can go offline without causing any significant effect to the grid than there are large ones, and the large ones probably have the resources to be manned 24/7 either on site or from a remote site over a dedicated and thereby secure fibre link. One take-away from this thread is that not all infrastructure is 'critical'.